


Unprofessional Conduct

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Art History, Asexual Charlie Kelly, I mean and other characters less so, M/M, Mild Kink, Musical References, Riots, but Mac and Charlie's friendship going through stuff is also part of the story, gratuitous references to the field of behavioral science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-24 15:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14358246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: A chance meeting brings Charlie Kelly back into the orbit of the scientist whose study the gang once upended... Strangely, he finds he really wants him there. Figuring out why and whether it's something he's okay with may take a little time, but he finds himself along for the ride just the same.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, many thanks to my darling cheer-reader, @seaweedredandbrown for making this feel possible!
> 
> Second, because this is more from the Scientist's POV, I have named him. We've all got our preferred names or lack of names, I'm sure, so if mental substitution doesn't do it for you but you want the story, by all means copy it into a word doc and find and replace and read it with the name/designation of your choosing with my blessing, if you're one of the people who sometimes does that. But please then come back and let me know what you thought?

Hugh hadn’t thought much about him as the years went by. He’d thought about the mistakes he’d made and the way things got away from him then, but not the man at the center of it all. He’d never gotten to know him. He would likely not recognize him if he passed him on the street today. He doubts he’d be recognized, despite being an ass. Despite the whole thing being more bar bet than scientific study. Despite everything. They’d pass on the street and be strangers, wouldn’t even twinge at the other’s memory until later, if ever. 

 

He thinks about him, rather, but he has no real picture of him. He remembers how he himself had felt, and how he had not liked feeling that way. He remembers he’d gone home and had a drink after which had not been at all celebratory, and he had thought bitterly of his old lofty goals. He’d thought about how he would not be published in JEAB anytime soon.

 

He’d be stuck another year or ten or twenty in America’s sweating armpit, in this foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy place, not doing anything important. Fucking up perfectly good monkeys at best.

 

Now, at the tail end of winter, the city is not fuming or foggy, but Hugh thinks the rest still stands. It’s Sunday, and he’s out of milk, and it seems to him like walking down to the corner store to get milk on a Sunday evening should be the simplest thing in the world. 

 

Of course there’s a riot.

 

Hugh doesn’t know anything about riots, not really. He’s managed to avoid unruly behavior very well, for living in an unruly city so long. He’s never been caught up in one. He’s read about what to do when a protest becomes a riot, but he’s never had it happen to him.

 

If this had been a protest, he feels he might have heard about it. Whatever it was, it’s a riot now, that’s all he can tell. Cars are being rocked, jumped on. People wearing body paint are climbing things and screaming. There’s an idiot waving something on fire about, up the block. 

 

And very nearby, there’s a man screeching out high-pitched curses, his hands over his eyes, and so Hugh does the only thing he can think of.

 

“Dude, what the fuck, man?” The stranger blinks at him, wiping milk out of his face. “Are you just really bad at rioting?”

 

“Possibly.” Hugh shouts over the roar of the crowd. “Sorry-- I thought you’d been pepper sprayed. I thought--”

 

“Oh. No, it was a laser, my friend lasered me. But it’s okay, it’s like, one of the not-bad lasers, I think. I’m just blind right now. But you know, like, lasers. Um, red means… it’s the bad laser, and green means go, and I guess a yellow laser would be somewhere in the middle, or…”

 

“No, that’s backwards. The green lasers are much worse.”

 

“Oh. Well shit, man. You’re super blurry right now. That’s like… a combination of milk and lasers.”

 

Hugh reaches for the stranger’s arm. “Well, here, let me make it up to you, let’s get out of here and… Let’s get to safety.”

 

Safety would be his apartment, ideally, where he could loan the stranger a towel and let him wait out the worst of the rioting, and though he’s not equipped to do much about the man’s eye except let him rest it, it’s better than nothing. 

 

He tries to apologize for overreacting, and tries to puzzle out if he knows the other man from somewhere, when he takes his attention from the walk ahead a little too long and the two of them smack into a tight knot of men. 

 

One of them barks a question at him when he tries to apologize, which he doesn’t half understand except that it seems to be a question of patriotism, and Hugh would very much not like to be beaten to a pulp just for bearing an accent. He stammers out the best reply he can.

 

It’s the wrong one.

 

“Shit, dude, you’re so bad at this!” The stranger shrieks, grabbing his arm. 

 

They run. By the time they hit the end of a blocked-off alley, no one seems to be chasing them, but Hugh’s heart is pounding harder than he thinks it was ever meant to, and at any moment some irrational lunkhead could find him and decide to pummel him into oblivion for reasons he can’t begin to fathom.

 

“I’m going to die.” He whimpers, clutching the chain link fence at the alley’s end, knees knocking together. “Crushed to death by ravening hooligans in a city that considers canned cheese a delicacy.”

 

“Hey, if you got a problem with cheese, then I got a problem with you.” The stranger huffs.

 

“No, I love cheese. Real cheese.”

 

A look comes over the man’s face, almost exactly like understanding, but with none of the associated enlightenment. 

 

“Ohh, I getcha, riiight. I, too, hate when cheese isn’t real.” He nods.

 

Ridiculous as that is, Hugh barely hears him. Now that he’s begun, it feels too important just to be witnessed in his final moments.

 

“I love cheese and crossword puzzles and musical theatre, and I love when it rains at night, and I love those compilation videos on the internet where things fit together and it’s satisfying, I love rats and cats and clean laundry smells, and tea. I don’t want to die here.”

 

“Okay, come with me. Keep an eye open at the intersections.” The man grabs his hand this time, and even half blind, he unerringly leads Hugh through the rioting crowds. It takes them far from Hugh’s building, but it takes them out of the riot.

 

“Do I know you from somewhere?” Hugh asks, panting, as they finally slow down to a walk.

 

“I doubt it, you sound kind of classy, like you go all the way into the art museum, but maybe you saw me on the steps, I used to have a business venture there.” The stranger shrugs. He brings them to a halt in front of a dingy looking little pub with a soft ‘damn’. “No riots here, but I think I know how you can make this milk-and-running thing up to me. Can you smash that window real good?”

 

Hugh loves the art museum but he doesn’t get the chance to say as much. 

 

“What business venture— no, I can’t smash a window, that’s criminal property damage!”

 

“Right, it’s criminal property damage if  _ you _ do it, not insurance fraud. So smash away, man, it’s a riot.”

 

Suddenly, Hugh recognizes him. He feels almost lightheaded. He’s not sure he wants to know what sort of ‘business ventures’ happen out in front of the art museum. While he was inside looking at  _ Vase with Twelve Sunflowers _ , was this shadow from his less-than-illustrious past just outside? 

 

“If you’re worried about that security camera, it’s fake.”

 

“I’m not smashing a window.” He insists. 

 

Kelly sighs, and opens the door. “Well you wanna come in?”

 

He shouldn’t. He doesn’t know what he’d say, or what he should say. He doesn’t want to stay out on the streets, though, and so he tells himself it’s only that, when he follows.

 

“Hell of a weekend for all the wiring to get chewed up, right? TV woulda been good.” 

 

“I suppose.” Hugh nods. He can’t think of a good time for that to happen. The lights which do work do so in an intermittent and worrying way, and there’s no telling what else does or doesn’t work. The TV wouldn’t be in his top five concerns. 

 

Kelly plunks a warm bottle of beer down in front of him and strips down to the waist, moving behind the bar where the sink works, even if nothing else does. Hugh studies the bartop intently, listening as milk is rinsed and wrung out of Kelly’s shirt, water splashed up against bare skin. 

 

“Do you remember me?” He asks at last, picking at the label on the bottle. He doesn’t look up, but he can feel the scrutiny.

 

“Oh… yeah. Shit, yeah. How, uh, how’s things?”

 

“Things…” He laughs. “Things are fine. How have you been?”

 

“Pretty good, man. Did you ever figure out that thing? The thing you were trying to do that didn’t work good with those pills?”

 

“No.” Hugh sighs. It’s a lot easier than trying to explain what he’d actually been doing. “I’m not-- I’m not working on that anymore.”

 

“Oh. Cool, cool. Yeah, there’s lots of things I don’t do anymore that didn’t work out, I get it.”

 

“I’m still a behavioural scientist.” He clarifies. “Look… mister Kelly--”

 

Before Hugh has the chance to apologize-- before he’s even sure if he owes an apology-- the door swings open, admitting a shirtless gentleman.

 

Well, ‘shirtless’ might preclude ‘gentleman’. He is presumably Kelly’s friend. His face is streaked with green, and the rest of him is…

 

Whatever he’s covered in, it’s all over his chest and arms, wet and glistening, and it’s soaked into the thighs of his jeans, stiff and dark. 

 

“Who the hell is this?” The man jabs a finger at Hugh, and Hugh finds he doesn’t want him to know. If they’ve met, it was briefly enough that neither of them made an individual impression. The shirtless man could have been part of a group of people Hugh wouldn’t remember individually, not clearly… but maybe he hadn’t been. And if he had, he would have seen Hugh as a lab coat and little more. All they are is strangers and it should stay that way, he feels suddenly and strongly about that. Strangers connected by a single tangent.

 

There is no way of communicating all of this to Kelly, he couldn’t possibly speak it out loud. He shoots a desperate glance, but Kelly is looking at the other man, already starting to answer.

 

“He’s just a guy, do I ask you about every guy you take places?”

 

“Um, it’s pretty different. I mean, I don’t bring weird guys around. But I could! I mean not weird ones, but guys.”

 

“Well we helped each other out during the riot. You know, after my best friend lasered me in the eyeballs and abandoned me to riot with other people. And anyway, he’s not weird, he likes cheese and cats and musicals and going to the art museum.”

 

“Really?” The man gives Hugh a skeptical look. 

 

“The inside of the art museum.”

 

    “Oh, yeah, that makes more sense. Why’s your shirt in the sink?”

 

    “Milk. Where’s your shirt?”

 

    “I whipped it off, dude. I was trying to make an impression. You don’t get laid at a riot by wearing a shirt and not getting covered in industrial lube. I had to get on that pole.”

 

    “I mean I don’t wanna hear about it, but good for you.”

 

    “Yeah well, I mean it didn’t pay off or anything, but there’s always next riot.”

 

    “You could try meeting men at places that aren’t actively rioting.” Hugh suggests, though he immediately regrets opening his mouth.

 

    “Oh, like I should go meet men inside an art museum? I should go to wine tastings and fine dining establishments? I should meet a guy who doesn’t want to flip over a police car while smashed on grain alcohol?”

 

    “It’s an idea.” Hugh sneers. He’s survived outside, after all, and he’s here as something like a guest, and the man might be shirtless, drunk, and absolutely covered with industrial lubricant, but he doesn’t seem like he’s spoiling to fight, just posturing. 

 

    “How about you meet guys at an art museum and let me meet guys at riots, mister art museum.”

 

    “That’s Doctor Art Museum, actually.” He snaps. Another mistake. They had met, however briefly-- they must have, otherwise he wouldn’t be receiving this level of scrutiny. 

 

    “Mac, c’mon, be cool.” Kelly cuts in. “You don’t get to be mad about me hanging out with other people when you wanted to hang out with other people, and anyway--”

 

    “Hold up, Charlie, I know this guy. I know this guy from somewhere, who is this guy?”

 

    “You know, the, um, the science-- tist.”

 

    “Science-tist? Charlie, that’s so-- Holy shit, it’s the science bitch.”

 

    “Lovely.” Hugh rolls his eyes.

 

    “He’s pretty cool.” Kelly defends, with something of a pout. “Anyway, why don’t you go out and try to get riot-laid or whatever.”

 

    Hugh doesn’t think he’s been in a room with two shirtless men since his undergrad days, and this might be even more awkward than that experience had been. Plus at least then he’d… well, best not to think about it all now. 

 

    “I don’t get what your problem is, Charlie--”

 

    “Uh, my problem is this was supposed to be our riot, like prime us-time, and we were gonna have a good time, we never have a good time anymore, and you never wanna hang out ever since--”

 

    “Don’t.” Kelly’s friend cuts him off, and Hugh feels very much like he shouldn’t be here for this, but he doesn’t really want to try to find his way back home, either. “You know what, you and Science Bitch have fun. I’m going to go get riot-laid. It’s gonna be awesome, and I feel sorry for anyone who isn’t here right now for this, like anyone who’s not in Philly, I feel really sorry for anyone who’s in any other city in the world, and I don’t even care. I don’t care. I’m having a good time tonight with someone who’s interested in what I have to offer. So whatever. And it has nothing to do with anybody else, like anybody who’s not here, who’s a loser for not being here.”

 

    He storms back out, which lifts some of the tension, though Kelly collapses forward onto the bar to rest his head on his forearms and whine.

 

    “Thank you.” Hugh says, giving his beer bottle-- still mostly full-- a quarter turn where it sits. “I’m not sure why you defended me to your friend…”

 

    “Well, he’s a dick, for starters, and he shone a laser in my eyes. And ever since Dennis left he’s just always… I dunno.”

 

    He shrugs, which is almost comical in his position, bare shoulders rising and falling dramatically. Hugh reaches over to pat awkwardly at his arm. He’d considered the shoulder and decided against it in a flash. Too high up, would have been covered by the shirt, would be too personal, too intimate. 

 

    “I… I’m sorry. That sounds… I’m sorry.”

 

    “Yeah, well, don’t be.” Kelly groans, turning his head to the side a little and cracking one eye open blearily. “That’s life, right?”

 

    “I suppose. Still… your friend shouldn’t have ditched you-- certainly not after blinding you with a green laser, good heavens how irresponsible can that man get, he shouldn’t even have that--”

 

    “Things are just, that’s life. And you know, like… I thought maybe it would be better. I thought it would be better. It’s really not, though. Um, d’you want another beer, or…?”

 

    “No. I haven’t finished this one. I haven’t paid you for it, either--”

 

    “No, no, ‘s on the house. For the, um… ‘cause you lost your milk, dude, and it’s ‘cause you thought my eyes were burning. I mean they were, from the laser. I know it was an accident, he’s not-- But it still pisses me off.”

 

    “Mister Kelly--”

 

    “You can just call me Charlie, dude, we rioted together. That’s, like… a bond now.”

 

    “Charlie. I… I would like to apologize…”

 

    “For the milk? Oh, it’s no problem, man. It’s no problem. Totally taken care of. I get covered in stuff all the time, milk is like the least gross thing I could get covered in during a riot.”

 

    “No. For… The study that you were involved in. You were not treated very fairly. When the... parameters changed, when everything went off the rails, it should have been halted. I feel like a bloody Philip Zimbardo.”

 

    “What’s a Philip Zimbardo? Are you Philip Zimbardo?”

 

    “No, no, Philip Zimbardo, the, the Stanford Prison Experiment. Complete disaster in the history of the study of human behavior. Er, my name’s Hugh. I mean, if-- Anyway. Philip Zimbardo wanted to establish some truths about human behavior, and instead the entire experiment spiraled out of control. Instead of calling a stop to it, he let it happen, kept it happening-- probably got off on how badly it went, in a purely non-sexual sense-- and it should not have continued. And people were hurt, and humiliated, and-- and none of the information is even useful, honestly! That’s the worst part, none of the information is even useful and they all went through that for nothing! And you went through my study for nothing.”

 

    “I got a thousand bucks.”

 

    “Yes, but… it wasn’t-- I mean, weren’t you… adversely affected by what we put you through?”

 

    “Not really.” Charlie shrugs. “I got a thousand bucks, so… it was pretty good, even if it didn’t work. Sorry you couldn’t make me like a genius or something, but… I’m good. I mean, if I’m not, you’ve got nothing to do with it.”

 

    “I’m glad.” Hugh smiles tentatively. “You didn’t deserve to be… I wasn’t a nice person, when I put you on display. That’s why I don’t like working with humans, honestly. I have to… to turn off thinking about them as individuals, as being real, as being whole, because otherwise the objectivity is compromised, but it’s compromised either way, isn’t it? When you don’t take into account a person’s whole humanity, you… you forget to treat them well, and that matters, too... It gets sloppy.”

 

    “Well, like I said, I got paid, so. But, thanks. You’re a decent dude.”

 

    “I’m very gratified that you think so. Most people… Well, most people don’t think about me much at all, I don’t think. I’m not any better with socializing with humans. My best friends are probably Stanley and Skinner…”

 

    “Are they dicks to you?” Charlie asks, instantly sympathetic.

 

    “No-- no, they’re… They’re rats. Not lab rats, house rats.”

 

    “Oh, you’ve got house rats? And they’re nice, you like… you just hang out with them?”

 

    “They’re pets. They live in a habitat, they aren’t like city rats living in the apartment willy-nilly, I keep them on purpose. They’re very nice. They’re very sweet creatures.”

 

    “Oh, dude. Dude, I don’t think I can deal with knowing that. I mean I fucking knew it. I knew it. They’re tiny little people who are all furry and I can’t deal with knowing that.” He buries his face in his hands, muffling a brief scream before tugging at his hair. 

 

    “Charlie…”

 

    “They’re tiny little people, they’re just like you or me, just fuzzy little men who love cheese.”

 

    “Actually, they prefer sweets to cheese, but it’s a common misconception.”

 

    “Little fuzzy, little sewer men with little tiny hands…”

 

    “And they prefer to be clean, living in a sewer is something they resort to because it puts them underground where predators don’t go, but rats are well-groomed animals who generally dislike being dirty. They’re altruistic and empathetic-- caring, selfless, social animals.”

 

    “Oh wow, it sounds like the rats are way better than me.” Charlie moans.

 

    “I’m sure that’s not true. You have your own intrinsic worth as a person. Anyway, you don’t live in a sewer.”

 

    “Right, no, I don’t _ live _ there.”

 

    Hugh frowns and pats at Charlie’s arm again. 

 

    “But you also like cats, and cats kill rats… like, is that, uh, a conflict of interests?” Charlie asks.

 

    “Cats behave as their own nature dictates. And it’s possible to keep a cat and rats in harmony, though I don’t currently have a cat…”

 

    “That’s good. That’s good, that they can get along. I wish I could just get along with rats.”

 

    “There’s no reason you couldn’t. Maybe… if you would-- if you wouldn’t mind escorting me home, in case the riot is still going on--”

 

    “Oh, that’s a two-day riot minimum.”

 

    “If you wouldn’t mind walking with me, you could come in and meet Stanley and Skinner. They look very much like Armitage, you remember him?” Hugh smiles, though he’s panicking internally. He’s just invited a near-stranger-- a former study participant-- into his home, he has no idea what he’s even thinking, he’d made the offer like it was nothing!

 

    “Oh yeah. I almost bashed him, you woulda been mad about that.”

 

    “I would have been highly upset, yes. But once I told you he belonged in the lab, you were just fine.”

 

    “Is that, is it like that with cats? You just tell them ‘it’s okay, that rat belongs here’, and they’re cool?”

 

    “Well, no… Some cats just naturally get along well with other species if they’re properly introduced, but others can be taught.”

 

    “Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, cool, let’s go.”

 

    “Charlie, wait--” Hugh shrugs his coat off, handing it over. “It’s a bit cold out to be without a shirt.”

 

    The smile he gets in return is enough to keep him warm for the walk. He doesn’t understand this feeling at all, but it’s enough that the feeling is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, having fallen into spending time together, Charlie and the Scientist get closer.

Charlie is surprisingly good at video games-- even those that seem to require some amount of reading. Puzzle-solving, strategy… considering the kind of buffoon he’d once come across as, he really does have a mind for strategy. 

 

It’s nice, actually. It means they have something they can unwind doing, and… well, bond over. It’s hard to talk to his colleagues about Charlie-- first of all, because he can’t let anyone know he’s spending time with someone who was once involved in a study he had been nominally in charge of, and second because they’d all wonder what the attraction was. 

 

It’s hard to explain the attraction, except… well, they’d escaped the riot, and the man had been strange but cute, and then… they’d spent time together. And Charlie was very strange, but very cute. Hugh  _ liked _ him. And so they kept spending time together, and there hadn’t been anything romantic about it, except that they had both been a little nervous at first, there had been a sense of something possible.

 

He talks about Charlie to his colleagues even though there’s no label he can put on it. Charlie is merely a new friend he has been spending a lot of time with recently-- one that his colleagues tease him about, because he’s terrible at keeping these things truly secret. He likes Charlie. He wants things with him that he was not prepared to want-- that if he had been told, that first meeting, he would have laughed at. 

 

He’d introduced Charlie to a puzzle game he’d been fond of, that was how this started. He’d asked him in after being walked home, and they’d chatted a little about likes, dislikes, hobbies. He’d been prepared for Charlie to hate it and to write it off as something for… well, not for him. Charlie had excelled instantly-- Charlie beat his time once or twice, despite the moments where he’d been unable to determine which labelled button he needed to click to proceed. 

 

Then Charlie had introduced him to one. Not a ‘steal five minutes over a lunch break’ puzzle game, but a deep strategy game. The game read most of the necessary words out loud, but where it didn’t, there were icons that he was familiar with. They played online with Charlie’s friends-- and Hugh was happy not to have them know where Charlie was playing from and who with, they still referred to him as ‘science bitch’... 

 

So far, they seemed to be dominating the rest of the gang, which Hugh has to admit is all Charlie. Hugh has put himself in charge of handling the popcorn, because Charlie is working at the keyboard, and the popcorn is covered in cheese powder, and because Charlie had admitted he would simply inhale the stuff if left to his own devices.

 

Mostly, because when he had offered to feed him, ready to play it off as a joke, Charlie had said ‘oh, yeah, cool’, as if it wasn’t weird at all. 

 

There is definitely an attraction at play. Seeing this side of him… if only they’d seen this side of him, he’d have written about him less harshly. Had he changed in the few years since or had he always been like this? What depths did he possess that Hugh never saw, because he never worked hands-on with him, because the whole thing had been-- for lack of a better word-- a shitshow?

 

It is not only the intellectual factor. It’s the sight of pink lips parting, and a pinker tongue flicking out to accept a piece of popcorn, and the soft sea of freckles, and the wide green eyes with their dark lashes… He is absorbed in his task and Hugh is content to watch him, and to feed him pieces of popcorn when asked, and to feel his heart race when he feels that tongue brush against his fingertips, something Charlie never seems to notice.

 

“They never read all these things out loud, but the pictures get enough across, plus there’s numbers so I just take the cheapest one every time unless something has like a bunch of ‘get this’ pictures.” He shrugs, explaining a sidebar of optional improvements. 

 

“I imagine it’s easier if you read it, though.”

 

“Yeah, well.” He leans back from the screen. “I don’t do that real good, if you remember, so I’ll wait until the game tells me out loud.”

 

“I think you could.” Hugh presses. He hadn’t been able to spell ‘spider’ correctly, but he’d demonstrated a basic ability. He could sound something out if it wasn’t too tricky. 

 

“Uh, now who’s the dummy?” Charlie shoots him a sideways look, giggling nervously. “Your smart pills didn’t work, I’m the same idiot I used to be. And it’s cool you wanna hang out anyway but if it’s just because of me getting you out of the riot, or--”

 

“It’s not just that.” He offers a piece of popcorn, unprompted, and Charlie leans in to take it. “I just think that you could. The pills weren’t real, Charlie, but… that doesn’t mean you can’t change. It means change doesn’t come in a magic pill, that’s all. It comes with trying, perhaps working quite hard.”

 

“Well, that would show everyone, I mean… me walking around reading stuff. Can you imagine? What’s next, me going all the way inside the art museum?”

 

“I can imagine.” He offers another kernel of popcorn, shifting on the sofa so that his elbow rests against the back. It’s as close as he dares to come to resting his arm along the back behind Charlie, but it’s… it’s close enough, his arm is close enough and their knees are close enough with him turned to the side. “If you would like, I-- I would be happy to take you to the art museum. It’s very nice.”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“There’s a painting on loan from Boston right now--”

 

“Yeah, but I mean, I don’t know anything about paintings, like, I’m just a guy--”

 

“We have it for three months because of a sports wager.” Hugh spits the words out in a rush. He had not been aware of the sporting event in question-- if he had been, he might have missed that riot-- but finding out about the wager leading to the painting’s being on loan did sound like a good opener. Even if asking Charlie to accompany him to an art museum was foolish and not a date, and likely to end in rejection which would only be all the more crushing if anyone ever found out the whole story behind this hopeless non-romance…

 

Charlie’s eyes widen and he grins. “What, this museum made a bet? Now we got one of Boston’s paintings?” He practically crows. “Yeah, we kicked their cheating asses, that’s why! I wanna see this painting. What’s it of?”

 

“A woman-- I can look up who--” Hugh offers, feeding Charlie another piece of popcorn. 

 

“Oh. Well, that’s still okay. I wanna see it anyway. You could, um… you could take me whenever. Like I’m free during… whenever. You could show me a bunch of paintings.”

 

“I would like that. And you might enjoy yourself.” He smiles, offers another piece of popcorn.

 

“You gotta do something for me, though, when we go.” Charlie says, popcorn disappearing into his mouth. “Mm-- you gotta take a picture on the Rocky steps if you’ve never done it before.”

 

He’s certainly seen enough people doing so-- he’s never been one of them. He normally takes the other entrance. But… if it would make Charlie happy, and Charlie is going in to look at art to make him happy, then it’s only fair. It’s not like he’s unfamiliar with the movie, though he can’t recall watching it all the way through.

 

“Deal.” He nods.

 

Charlie turns back to the screen, staring for a long moment before sounding out the most heavily icon-ed bonus available. He repeats the word correctly, darts a somewhat nervous look over towards Hugh before breaking into a smile when he’s merely offered another piece of popcorn.

 

“I thought you would make me feel dumb. Like my friends are all pretty dumb and they still make me feel dumb. I mean they’re not-- I mean it’s cool, it’s cool. It’s been weird lately, actually, but not bad-weird? It’s like… weird. But even Dennis isn’t like… scientist smart just ‘cause he went to college. It’s weird you don’t make me feel dumb, I am super dumb next to you, dude.”

 

“You’re doing very well in the game. I-- I’m glad not to make you feel dumb. I wouldn’t want that… not with-- with being friendly.” He offers another piece of popcorn. “You’re doing better at this than I would be, anyway.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.” Charlie nods. “Anyway I guess we’re done with that. Like, you made me feel a little dumb that one time, but I must have made you feel really dumb. But now that’s all over and we can just be cool. You could come hang out at Paddy’s if you want, we could use a new guy who’s been to college now.”

 

“A… lovely offer, but I don’t think your friends like me much.”

 

“Mac’ll get over himself. He’s just jealous and he’s being weird and a dick.”

 

“J-jealous?”

 

“Yeah. I don’t know. ‘Cause I’m hanging out with you and having a fun time, and we could have been hanging out except he keeps blowing me off anyway, but if I do it it’s a problem.” Charlie rolls his eyes. “He’s just been weird for a while, but everything’s been weird. And then instead of hanging out together at the riot, he wants to go get laid and now he’s being a dick about it because it didn’t work out and now I’m hanging out with you sometimes and I don’t know, he’s jealous.”

 

Hugh isn’t sure how to unpack all of this. 

 

“I mean. I think it’s cool we hang out sometimes, he does plenty of stuff without me. But… yeah. I guess you’re right, I don’t think the gang is really ready for that. You and me should do our thing solo.”

 

“You and me, solo.” Hugh swallows, holding out another piece of popcorn. “Yes. Very cool.”

 

Charlie snags it with his tongue again-- no accidental contact, just the dry cheese-powdered popcorn sticking to the wet of his tongue. This feels good, even without that accidental contact. It feels so right it has to be wrong, and he doesn’t want to think about that. He can’t think about any of it. 

 

Charlie sounds out another word on his next turn, looking to Hugh for confirmation-- and another piece of popcorn, readily given, a half-whispered ‘good’ that sounds far too throaty. Hugh can’t focus on Charlie’s game, despite the occasional bits of explanation Charlie offers for why he makes this or that move. He does his best-- he’s certainly impressed by what he gets of Charlie’s strategy, fingers trembling as he feeds him another piece of popcorn and feels the brush of moist lips against them.

 

His fingertips are disgusting, a damp, gritty plaster of cheese powder and Charlie’s saliva, it is highly uncomfortable and yet there are no solutions. Licking them clean? Unsanitary, and highly suspicious. Asking Charlie to lick them clean? No, bad man, much worse. Grabbing a tissue to try and clean them would only lead to shreds of tissue stuck onto the whole mess. Getting up to wash? He can’t seem to make himself.

 

Charlie sounds out more and more words, with sly and expectant looks each time, leg bouncing with excitement, and suddenly everything is clear.

 

In a second, Hugh is across the room, his heart pounding.

 

“Con-ti-nue.” Charlie taps at a button, then looks up with a frown. “Popcorn?”

 

“Help yourself. Help yourself-- as much as you like.” Hugh rakes a hand over his hair, trembling. His face feels hot. 

 

“Okay, but like… I mean, it was just, it was nice is all, when you were… I mean it’s not important.” He shakes his head, though his tone implies it is important.

 

“I can’t feed you popcorn.” He closes his eyes. “Maybe another time. Maybe watching a movie. But not-- not like this.”

 

Charlie sets his game aside with a frown. “You… Okay. Not like what? Not like… I don’t get popcorn for being good?”

 

“I don’t give you popcorn for being good. I can’t do that. We can’t do that. You can give yourself popcorn for being good.”

 

“Yeah, but… I can give myself popcorn for being bad.” He makes a face. “I could tear through this popcorn for no reason. It doesn’t mean anything if I control the popcorn.”

 

“You’re allowed to handle the popcorn however you want. It can be a reward, but it doesn’t have to be. But I can’t… I can’t do that for you.”

 

“Why not, though?”

 

“Because you’re not a lab rat! Because I’m not training you!” Hugh shouts, but by the time he’s done, Charlie has crossed the room-- not in a few long strides but at a run, his hands cupping Hugh’s face.

 

It isn’t a kiss. It isn’t not a kiss. It’s a moment in which they’re leaned into each other’s space, breathing hard until they sync. Sometimes their lips touch. It’s less about that.

 

“What’s this for?” Hugh asks, his voice shaky, his own hands coming up as well, until he remembers one of them is covered in cheese powder and so he can only awkwardly rest the heel of his hand on Charlie’s shoulder.. 

 

“Tell me what I’m not… Just tell me what I’m not.”

 

“For starters, a lab rat. I-- Oh--”

 

This time it is a kiss, and then another, soft to each cheek. 

 

“I mean some of my best friends…” He jokes weakly, but he doesn’t pull away. His lips brush that cheek with each word. “This thing… it can’t be like that. I can’t be like that. You deserve better than that.”

 

“I don’t think so. I thought it was nice.” Charlie says, his voice soft. Almost too soft to be real.

 

“I don’t want to use you. Not now. Not after… after everything. Things are different. And you aren’t a project to me.”

 

“‘Nother thing I’m not.” Charlie smiles.

 

“You’re not dumb.”

 

“It’s okay, I know I’m dumb--”

 

“You are  _ not _ dumb. ‘Dumb’ is a made-up concept because there are so many varieties of intelligence in the world, and you may not possess all of them, you may seem to operate at a deficit, but that’s not the whole picture. And I’ve seen you now, and I know you aren’t.”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

“It’s not okay, though, is it?” Hugh closes his eyes, something twisting in his chest. “I mean… it’s fine, there’s nothing-- nothing wrong with-- But you say it like it’s all you are and all you’ll ever be and that’s just not true. And… is it my fault that you think you’ll only ever be--?”

 

“Dude, are you kidding me? Nah, I’m… like… comfortably dumb. It’s got nothing to do with you, man, like… you didn’t make me smart but you didn’t make me any more dumb.”

 

Hugh relaxes a little. He hadn’t needed to feel particularly guilty until Charlie came into his life, but the thought had been there, for him to struggle to ignore, and he is glad to be absolved of it. To be absolved every time it rears its ugly head, to feel like he can be a good man.

 

“Okay, so…” Charlie bites his lip, looking up at where Hugh had mussed his hair, and Hugh holds still, not quite daring to hope that the other man might fix it for him. It’s not at all likely-- Charlie and the concept of neatly-combed hair do not seem to mesh together-- but why else would he be staring as if he longed to ask permission to touch?

 

Unless-- even better-- he wants to muss it up further?

 

“Go on.” Hugh encourages. 

 

“Okay, look, not to get weird on you, but can I lick the cheese powder out of your hair?”

 

Not what he’d expected. Not at all what he had expected Charlie might say. 

 

He’s more okay with it than he would have expected. A little embarrassed to realize he’d smeared spit and cheese powder into his hair. 

 

“I mean, I have used product in it…” He cautions.

 

“Not a deterrent.”

 

“I’m not sure I should say yes.” He makes a face. The fact that he even wants to say yes is bad enough.

 

“C’mon. What is it, hairspray? I’ve huffed so much worse than hairspr-- I mean, you know, whatever, it’s probably fine.” He amends the bid at the face Hugh makes.

 

“Don’t huff hairspray. Or anything. I mean, preferably, anything.”

 

“I mean, is this a hard no on the cheese powder, or?”

 

Hugh settles uneasily into his seat on the sofa. “I would… appreciate not having cheese in my hair, but I really don’t think I should let you lick it. I’m… I don’t even know how to define this relationship at all right now.”

 

“Well… um, okay. So we’re… We hang out now. And… I think it’s a cool thing for you to feed me popcorn. I’m open to you feeding me a lot of things, actually. And we’re going to the museum together. Is that, like, a date?”

 

“I would like it to be a date.”

 

“Okay. Um. So, I’ve never… dated a dude before. But also… I don’t actually… like sex with women?” Charlie says, the pitch of his voice escalating steadily until his voice sounds strained by it. Moreso than usual. “Which, I mean, I’ve done. Obviously. Like…”

 

He does a bit of thinking, counting out on his fingers and waffling between three and four.

 

“I think three or four partners is a respectable sample size, especially if the conclusion you’re coming to is that you simply don’t enjoy it.”

 

“Times. Times that count-- or partners. Um, yeah. No, great. Is that okay?” He asks, cringing a little in anticipation. “Is that, like… normal, scientifically? For like… a guy… to…”

 

“Yes, it’s perfectly normal for some men to have no real interest in sex. It isn’t much talked about. But it’s-- it isn’t scientifically abnormal if it’s a matter of preference and not a medical condition. It’s just your normal.”

 

“Oh. Cool. It’s just-- I mean, it’s so gross, right? And one time I liked it kind of a lot, and one time I thought I was really going to like it and it was the worst, but most of the time I don’t think about it. The guys act like it’s weird.”

 

“Yes, well. Color me surprised.” Hugh rolls his eyes. “We can date without having sex.”

 

“All right. Great, cool. Then that’s not even really different.”

 

“No, I suppose not.” He agrees, though he’s not sure if Charlie means it’s not that different from simply hanging out, or not that different from dating a woman you weren’t going to have sex with. Which… well, maybe in this case, it wasn’t. Charlie flops down on the couch next to him, and Hugh dares reaching out with his non-cheese powdered hand, letting it slip into the other man’s. 

 

“Okay, but if hair-licking is off the table-- no, I get it, that’s cool, if I get to say no dick-licking, you get to say no hair-licking. Fair. But what about fingers?”

 

“That… would be all right with me.”

 

Intensely frustrating, sexually speaking, but very enjoyable… he offers his other hand, and Charlie takes it, leaning in.

 

There’s nothing overtly sexual or playfully teasing about it, but there’s still a sensual pleasure in it. There’s still an enjoyment, even if it’s not anything he could have anticipated… It’s nice, it’s intimate, it’s… warm and wet and all the things Hugh normally thinks of as sexual, it just isn’t foreplay for anything. 

 

He has to quash the urge to reward him with even more popcorn for it, which… does not bear thinking about. 

 

“Here.” Charlie pulls off of his fingers, grabbing for a tissue so that he can clean up the saliva. Then he grabs another and leans over, getting at least some of the hair situation fixed without resorting to grooming him like a cat. 

 

“Oh-- thank you.”

 

“I should, uh… I should get back to the game, probably. Or they’ll wonder where I went. But I could do that again, if you could keep feeding me popcorn?”

 

“Only when you ask for it, this time. I think that’s for the best. But… I would like that, too.” He nods, face red. 

 

Charlie grabs the computer and settles back in, then gives him a grin and leans over. Their shoulders bump together, and then a nose bumps gently against his cheek, and then they each have their own personal space again.

 

“I’m telling everybody I got a date at the art museum, like, in the art museum. That’ll be so weird, they’re gonna say I’m lying-- Oh. No, I’m gonna say ‘hey, what do you want to bet I can get a classy-ass date to the art museum by the end of this week?’, and then the gang’s gonna take that bet because they don’t know I have a classy-ass date to the art museum. Fifteen bucks easy, all I gotta do is, like… I don’t want to get followed, so we’ll have to take, like… mm, minimum five couple-y looking pictures? Then next time I can take you on a date.”

 

“Are you asking me to fleece your friends?”

 

“Yeah, you wanna?”

 

Hugh considers this a moment. They do seem like genuinely unpleasant people… it would be their own fault for underestimating Charlie, if they did take the bet, and after some turning the idea around, he can’t find anything about it that rubs up against his sense of ethics very badly.

 

“Yes. Let’s. Your friend from the riot already disparaged the idea of meeting dates at art museums, there’s your opener. You just remind him of the conversation and suggest you could do it--”

 

“And he can’t. Then he’ll definitely take the bet, and Frank takes every bet, and then I think Dee really will, because we’ll all be doing it. This is gonna be really fun. This is a great date idea.”

 

Hugh reaches over, taming one errant lock of Charlie’s hair for him. “I’m looking forward to it.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short one, just to cover the museum date. And the complicated matter that is catching feels for Charlie.

Charlie is dressed up, that’s the first thing Hugh notices when he meets him at the foot of the east entrance stairs. The wide tie is utterly ridiculous, but it’s clear he tried, and his hair is neat, even his beard is neatened up. 

 

“You look nice.” He greets. Fashion is something they can work on in the future-- he can at least assure Charlie that there’s no requirement to wear a tie, if this is the only one he owns. But it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. 

 

“Yeah? Like a classy art museum guy?”

 

“I don’t know.” Hugh laughs, straightening his lapels out for him, not that it’s necessary. But the corduroy sports coat is worn and soft and it’s nice to be able to reach over and touch in any little way. “Like my date. Who doesn’t need to be a classy art museum guy, but who I hope will enjoy the art museum today. If you hate it, we can just go and get a bite to eat… we can do other things. But I hope you’ll like it.”

 

“I gotta like it enough to win the bet.” Charlie says. “You’re gonna get pictures with me.”

 

“Yes, I’ve been looking forward to that, too.”

 

“Okay, okay-- you gotta do the steps, you promised.”

 

He had promised to take a picture on them, but he doesn’t argue the point. Not with Charlie grinning expectantly at him. He jogs up after him, huffing and puffing all the way, and then he surrenders his phone and lets Charlie shout instructions to him as to how to pose in a more Rocky-like fashion. Finally, Charlie is satisfied enough to pass his phone back and let him rest his arms, and Hugh digs out his museum membership, offering his arm.

 

He still doesn’t understand it, if he’s honest. He doesn’t think he ever will. Sometimes he doesn’t want to understand it-- he wants to have one thing that’s allowed to just be, un-analyzed, one thing in a world of data and examination and hypotheses and repetition. He wants to like Charlie for Charlie, and he does. He doesn’t need to know why.

 

He doesn’t want to dream about him the way he has been… that’s the one thing that threatens to spoil the simple happiness that’s come into his life since they stumbled back into each other’s paths. Dreams where he’s clearly still using Charlie as some kind of lab rat, dangling a favored treat out to him and making him jump through metaphorical hoops. That’s not what he wants them to be, it would be much easier to have sex dreams, why doesn’t he have sex dreams? He’s happy not to have sex but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to, why can’t he just dream about that, and not having the man on his knees, waiting to be rewarded?

 

He doesn’t want that to spoil this. He doesn’t want things to be the way they were, when he was supervising the study… doesn’t want to make Charlie unhappy or into a worse version of himself, or any of that. He wants to help him, in as much as Charlie would welcome help. He wants to change his life for the better, but it can’t be on Hugh’s terms, it can’t be to Hugh’s standards, it can’t be because Hugh is some sort of… arbiter of such things, running Charlie through the maze of life. He feels good during those dreams, and terrible when he wakes from them. It’s the last thing he wants to think about now that he’s on the date at last.

 

He rests his hand at the small of Charlie’s back, and gets their tickets, and leads him in. He shows him to the painting on loan from Boston first, and then he simply lets Charlie explore at his own pace. Most things he doesn’t look at for very long, but when they reach  _ Vase With Twelve Sunflowers _ , Charlie stops.

 

“Oh, dude, oh, fuck. This painting gets me.” He groans, looking at it with mingled awe and displeasure.

 

His choice of language draws a couple of stares, and a reproachful cough, which Hugh ignores, straightening up and settling his arm more firmly around Charlie’s waist.

 

“You think so? It’s one of my favorites in the collection.”

 

“Yeah, I think so. Like… those other paintings didn’t get me. Fancy shit and naked people and boats and stuff, and like… I don’t get it? Because it’s just a picture of flowers and that’s kind of dumb, I don’t care about flowers at all. But it makes me feel things, it makes me feel stuff.” He runs a hand through his hair, mussing it. “This one knows how I feel.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Hugh whispers. He doesn’t know why-- it seems like a strange thing to be sorry about, when he had hoped that Charlie would like at least one of the paintings. Except he hadn’t said ‘I like this painting’, and he doesn’t sound like he likes it at all. He’d said it gets him. A very different feeling.

 

“Is it a messed up painting and I’m too dumb to get that? Like… Sorry, ‘cause it’s your favorite, but-- Because I’m a messed up dude, and like… But you like me? And you like the painting, and I feel like…”

 

“It’s not a messed up painting, Charlie. It’s a beautiful one. But… that doesn’t mean it has to be a happy one. Art affects everyone personally. This is a copy of an earlier version, the artist’s attempt at making a better version… And it’s… it was painted for someone, as a gift-- as a way of impressing someone else. Or, some of the variations were. They were painted for a friend who never cared as much as he was cared about.”

 

“Holy shit, this painting does get me.”

 

“I suppose it does.” Hugh gives him a squeeze, ignoring the disapproving glares and coughs. “I’ll show you some more later, if you like. Some of them might make you feel the same way, but others might not. You might decide you like them. But it’s all right if you don’t.”

 

“Can we take a picture in front of the painting?”

 

Hugh nods. “I think we should.”

 

They stop in the art cafe after, and nothing else gets to Charlie the same way, but he’s happy to glance at the rest, and to take pictures together.

 

“This was weird and different, but really cool.” He says, slipping his hand into Hugh’s as they leave. “Like… it’s really cool you thought I could even dig this stuff. And… um, just thanks. For like… telling me what all the paintings are called and telling me-- telling me I’m not messed up. I mean I am--”

 

“You’re lovely, Charlie.” He turns, cupping his cheek. “And… all right, maybe you are messed up. Most people are to some degree, and never in all the same ways. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re… that you mean something to me. That I like you. I like you more than most people.”

 

“More than most paintings?”

 

“Yes.” He laughs, stopping short when Charlie leans up and kisses him. It’s just a quick peck, but it leaves him feeling pleasantly stunned just the same. “More than all of the paintings. Another time we can see the sculptures, maybe I’ll like you more than all of those, too.”

 

“Yeah? Cool, cool. Maybe we’ll do that.” Charlie grins. “Um, so I’ve got a bet to win, but… I could come over and take you to dinner sometime? Take you out with that bet money and like… well it’s not enough to take you to a super nice place but I could still, I could still take you to a nice place. I could take you someplace nice, you-- you deserve that.”

 

“Do I? Well… I’d rather have you take me to some place that you like.”

 

This is, perhaps, a risky offer. He doesn’t regret making it. He lets Charlie escort him home, taking the trolley to his neighborhood and then walking to his door. He thinks about inviting him in, but Charlie bids him a quick goodnight before rushing off, and so he simply heads in to spend some time with the rats.

 

He has a lot to think about, it feels like. It’s easier to think when he has the rats arguing over who gets to climb into his shirt pocket.

 

He likes Charlie, very much. He likes him progressively more each time they see each other.

 

He wants Charlie to have nice things in his life, to feel good about himself-- to be free from the influence of people who don’t make him feel good about himself. He wants Charlie to feel confident in his place in the world, and to like himself, and to assert himself with his friends.

 

And a part of him wants to see Charlie on his knees, to withhold or to provide him with something that he badly wants… to see gratitude in those big green eyes and to know it’s all for him, to know that there’s a part of Charlie that’s all for him.

 

He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to be that person, controlling a poor man who has dealt with enough manipulation in his life-- worse, that he had been the source of it once, even if it was in a controlled and somewhat scientific manner.

 

He doesn’t know what to do about it. He just knows that’s where his feelings stand.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugh figures something out, and Charlie plans out a date.

This time, in his dreams, Charlie is there again-- the way he’s appeared in his dreams fairly consistently, but dressed as he had been at the museum. His wide tie and everything, his hair mussed but clearly recently groomed. There, on his knees, his expression pleading, adoring, grateful for any scrap of attention, attention Hugh is free to withhold.

 

It turns his stomach. 

 

It turns him on.

 

He wakes in a cold sweat, from the vision of having a palmful of chocolate chips licked out of his hand in a desperate frenzy, from the vision of his hand fisted in Charlie’s once-neat hair, the things he had said under his breath, the instruction and praise…

 

He’s achingly hard, and he feels a twinge of guilt, but the guilt is different.

 

He isn’t thinking about how he’s wrong to take advantage of Charlie’s naivete or the way he’s used to being used-- he’s thinking about how he doesn’t want to bother Charlie with the matter of his sexual desire. And he isn’t thinking about him as a lab rat to run through a maze-- not even as a matter of the way he doesn’t want to see him. No, it’s clear now, it isn’t his job and the unfortunate matter of their first meeting bleeding into their relationship at all-- it’s  _ kink _ .

 

Surprising, but not anything he can’t deal with. It’s not as if he’s never been willing to indulge in things before, with previous partners. He’s gotten reasonably kinky, even. It’s just never been like this, this feeling. This all consuming need to have Charlie look at him that way, and to be able to give him what he needs… to give him what he needs only if he earns it.

 

He starts his morning, head buzzing with fresh context to slot his thoughts and feelings into. 

 

Maybe this is a good thing. If Charlie was interested, if Charlie said yes, then this was something they could do together. Something that wasn’t sex-- and it won’t be, no matter how much he might want it, it won’t be. Something that’s theirs, another way of connecting… There’s no point in lying to himself, knowing what his feelings are doesn’t mean he’s never going to feel guilty again. He could still feel less guilty.

 

His heart is lighter, anyway, as he goes through his day, and his cell phone rings just as he’s beginning his lunch break, the picture of the two of them in front of the painting popping up.

 

“Charlie.” He answers, breaking out in a wide smile. “Hullo, how are you?”

 

“Hey, I’m good. I won that bet. Mac is being super weird about it. Which isn’t fair, I can’t believe how unfair it is. He’s acting like I’m the one who’s being unfair because I didn’t tell him I liked guys, and I told him I don’t even like guys, I just like you, and then he made a big deal about the fact that, like… I dunno.”

 

“About the fact that I’m the ‘science bitch’?”

 

He can practically hear the wince in the pause that follows. “Yeah, well… Anyway, it’s super dumb. We’ve known each other since we were kids and it took him forever to tell me he likes guys! But he doesn’t think I cheated to win the bet, he just thinks it’s weird I would want to go out with you.”

 

“Well. I don’t think it’s dumb, Charlie, if it bothers you. Whatever your friend is going through, he could stand to be a lot kinder to you. But I don’t mind if he calls me ‘science bitch’, I mean-- I don’t… It doesn’t hurt my feelings, because his opinion means very little to me. What I mind is that his opinion means something to you and he’s hurt your feelings. I am looking forward to seeing you for dinner soon.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yes, very much. Wherever you want to go. I’m looking forward to having you come over, too, if that’s something you’d like.”

 

“Just to hang out at your place again?”

 

“Yes. Just to talk and spend some time together. I-- I was thinking…” He gets up from his desk, going to lock his office door. “I was thinking if you would like me to feed you popcorn again, we could do that. If you… if you would like me to do it because you’ve been good.”

 

“Yeah? I thought you said you couldn’t.”

 

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. It made me nervous, because I didn’t understand what I wanted out of it. I was afraid of using you again… but you told me that you liked it. If you like doing it, then I think we can, and no one has to be using anyone-- it would be something we could bond over, if it made us both happy. But I’d like to talk about it in person.”

 

“Yeah. Sure. Um… like, are you free on Saturday, during the day? We could hang out and then I could take you out to dinner? And like… then I’ll have to go to work, but we could just hang out first?”

 

“I would love that.” Hugh smiles, shoulders relaxing. “Saturday afternoon, I’ll be home all day… I’ll see you then.”

 

“Great, cool. Looking forward to it!”

 

“So am I. I’ll see you then.”

 

\---/-/---

 

Charlie takes him out to walk around a park, where he talks at length about catching pigeons-- Hugh begs him not to demonstrate-- and occasionally picks up a leaf or a twig or a small rock, to inspect and then to toss. 

 

“I don’t get why people think there needs to be… like, more nature than this?” Charlie frowns a little, plucking a blade of grass from alongside the path, holding it up close to one eye and then watching it flutter down to the ground. “I think the park’s okay and you can see plants and birds and squirrels and all that shit. Have you ever been out to to the woods, though? I don’t get that.”

 

“It may surprise you to hear, Charlie, but I am not a very outdoorsy person myself.” Hugh chuckles. “I think it’s important for nature to exist and be preserved… but I don’t think it’s important for me personally to go out in it. But a walk through the park is nice.”

 

“Yeah. You’re sure you don’t want to see me catch a pigeon, though?”

 

“I’m sure.”

 

“I did see the ocean once though, I guess that’s nature. But like, a forest is creepy, and the ocean is magical. Too many trees is just, too many trees is spooky and like, there’s owl eyes in the tree holes and monster noises at night and bugs everywhere and maybe bats bite your face or like bad stuff happens, but the ocean just has like… little ocean dudes like crabs and fish and shit, and seaweed, and pirate treasure…” He pauses, frowning, but shakes it off. “I dunno.”

 

“The ocean is certainly magical. I suppose there must still be pirate treasure out there, shipwrecks and such. I’ve never thought about it before.” Hugh slides an arm around him. “I haven’t been to the seaside in a long time.”

 

“I just went once, Dee and Dennis took me. I don’t really like leaving Philly, they had to knock me out a little for that part, but I really liked it.”

 

Hugh has so many questions, and he bites all of them back. He’s not sure he can bear the answers.

 

Charlie takes him to a sandwich shop, and orders them each a nauseating-looking concoction that Hugh finds himself enjoying, despite not particularly liking most of the base elements. It’s going to be hell on his acid reflux, but he eats the whole monstrosity and can easily see himself doing so again. He is treated to the sight of Charlie licking dubious cheese-based substances off of his own fingers-- and off his shirt, which should definitely not be half as endearing as it is.

 

Hugh offers him a dab of the anti-bacterial gel he has with him-- he’s in the habit of keeping the stuff everywhere, working with small animals and grad students. 

 

“Is this that stuff that smells good?” Charlie accepts it without a fuss, inhaling deeply before Hugh can say it’s unscented. “That’s nice.”

 

“It smells like alcohol fumes…” Hugh frowns a little. 

 

“It and me both.” Charlie shrugs, rubbing it in. He pulls out the remainder of his bet money, waving it. “You wanna get ice cream?”

 

Hugh groans. “I don’t think I could.”

 

“Well… do you want to share one, then?”

 

“You don’t have to spend everything on taking me out, you know… but if you want to get ice cream, I suppose a little taste or two wouldn’t hurt.”

 

“Well, where do you like to go? There’s a million ice cream places in Philly, we’ll go wherever you want.” Charlie grabs his hand, tugging him towards the door, overjoyed at the soft yes. Beautifully unselfconscious, where Hugh is aware of being looked at. Judged for being a couple, or just for being an odd one? But it matters less when Charlie is enjoying himself.

 

He takes Charlie to his favorite ice cream shop-- rather, the only one he thinks he’s really been to, normally he picks ice cream up at the store if he thinks he’ll want it, but he’d been moved by the colorful storefront, and then it had become not a routine, but a place he could go if he needed a treat, anyway. 

 

Hugh reads the menu out loud, softly, while they hang back and let a family go ahead of them, and Charlie orders a cone of the birthday cake ice cream, periodically holding it out for Hugh to take a lick of, and it’s a bit the reverse of what Hugh wants, but that only increases his resolution to discuss the matter of kinks with Charlie. 

 

Here, they don’t get stared at, or at least not for being two men sharing an ice cream cone. Charlie laughs perhaps a little too loud when he gets ice cream on Hugh’s nose mostly by accident, but Hugh had reached over with a napkin earlier to get a drip of ice cream out of Charlie’s beard, and so Charlie insists upon returning the favor, wiping at his face, and there are drips to be caught and licked, and when one rolls all the way down to Charlie’s hand, Hugh takes the cone from him a moment, cleaning up the drips and then taking Charlie’s hand and kissing away the melted ice cream, before returning the treat.

 

Charlie escorts him to his door, and this time, Hugh grabs for his arm before he can rush off. 

 

“Come in a minute? Just to talk?”

 

“Just to talk… okay, yeah. Yeah.” Charlie smiles. “Um… I mean, you could, you know, it doesn’t have to be only talking. If you wanna kiss me. I could stay a little bit before I have to go.”

 

“I’d like to talk first, but I hope I can kiss you goodnight, yes.” Hugh lets them in, and Charlie wanders over to the rat run on his way to the sofa. Hugh watches him gently place one fingertip to the plastic tube that Skinner is in, before he leaves them and gets comfy.

 

Hugh makes sure to give both boys a bit of attention before he joins Charlie on the sofa, taking his hand.

 

“There are some things I’d like to do with you, if you think you would ever be interested-- not sexual things. Well… things that I might enjoy on that level, but… nothing you would be uncomfortable with or not want, that’s what’s most important-- I really don’t know how to… Do you remember when I was feeding you popcorn?”

 

“Yeah. You wanna feed me stuff? I wish I knew that before, you could’ve fed me before I was, like, full.”

 

“Well-- I mean not right this minute, but… It’s not about the food itself, it’s about… I want to give you something that you want. I want to be the only person who gives you certain things… and certain feelings.”

 

“... Well, like… dating stuff?”

 

“Yes, but… I mean… I mean, instead of sex, you and I could have…”

 

“Popcorn.”

 

“Well, could have… times where I feed you, for being good. Not because I need to train you, but as a, as a sort of… Like a game, but not a game. I mean… I want-- I want to feel the way that you made me feel, without the guilt spoiling it. Without worrying that I’m taking advantage of you. I want to do things for you, and I suppose I want to feel like it makes me special.”

 

Charlie laughs a little and throws an arm around him.

 

“You’re-- man, you’re, you’re already special. You make me feel special, too. You… you make me feel like I can be better, like… I dunno. Like I’m not just the guy everyone always says I am. Like… I could go to museums and shit and… and read good, or at least more… more good than I did.”

 

“You’re special to me, and… I want to… I want to explore some non-sexual kinks with you. If that’s something you’re comfortable with-- if that’s something that you also want to explore.”

 

“Non-sexual kinks.” Charlie sounds dubious, but interested. He doesn’t pull away, his arm still around Hugh’s shoulders.

 

“Yes. And we can continue to discuss what is and isn’t all right with you, and what we want. If you want to pretend to earn a reward, or if you just want me to do things to take care of you…”

 

“How is you taking care of me kinky? Isn’t kinky, like… um, sexy spanking, or… uh…”

 

“Kinky’s what you make of it. I’m not really interested in hurting you, Charlie. I’m interested in taking care of you. I’m interested in finding ways of feeling good together that aren’t to do with sex. I am… I am interested in being someone who makes you feel safe and good. And… sometime, when we’re both free again, I’d like to try. We can just do what we did before, have some popcorn… let me feed you. And we can talk about what it is we both want.”

 

“Yeah, okay. That sounds good.” Charlie’s head rests gently against him. “I thought it felt nice, that time… Dude, are you sure you know what kinky is, though?”

 

“I can assure you, I do.” He turns to kiss Charlie’s head, letting his nose stay buried in his mussy hair. “But if there’s something I’m leaving out that’s important to you, do let me know.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which these two try their best at something new.

Charlie’s knee bounces as he settles into place on the sofa. Sunday afternoon, neither of them has anywhere to be… they’re as prepared as Hugh thinks they’re ever going to get.

 

“If you don’t like something, just tell me. We’ll stop and we’ll change it.” He promises. “This is supposed to make you feel good, and if it doesn’t, then it’s no good for anyone.”

 

“Yeah. Okay. Um… so… just-- You really, we won’t have sex?”

 

“No. There won’t be any sex. You’re going to keep all your clothes on and so will I. I might kiss you, no differently from how we’ve kissed before. If it makes you uncomfortable, then I won’t. I want you to like this… Now, it is true I will probably be aroused, but that is not your problem to worry about. That’s not what this is about-- this is about finding something special we can do together that isn’t sex at all.”

 

Charlie nods, swallowing. “Not sex at all. Okay. Wow. So I’ve been, like, lied to about what all this stuff is about, it’s not about sex? At all? Because I tried to look up more about it, and then I had to stop looking ‘cause it seemed like it was a lot about sex and like… some other stuff. Not like the stuff I wanna do with you.”

 

“It is like that for some people. But it’s not for you, so it’s not for us. My sexual needs are something I am very capable of taking care of by myself.”

 

“I hear that.” Charlie snorts, making a very indicative hand motion. “I mean, me too, I mean it works, everything works and it’s totally normal. But like… it’s just, it doesn’t work out to get someone else involved, it’s gross, I’m not into it.”

 

“Exactly-- you’re not into it, so we’re not going to. And you don’t have to worry. If me feeding you popcorn for being good makes you happy, though… it makes me happy.”

 

“I have to actually be good. It doesn’t count if I just get to have it. Like… I want it to be because you’re happy with me.”

 

“I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble being good.” Hugh cups Charlie’s face. “You’re going to make me very happy. Aren’t you?”

 

His eyes go wide, hungry for something that he trusts Hugh alone to give. It’s good, it’s already good, the bouncing knee stills and Charlie nods just barely, keeping his face in Hugh’s palm.

 

“Yeah, I can make you happy.”

 

“Good.” He whispers, slowly sliding his hand away, relishing the way Charlie leans after his touch. “Right answer. Why don’t you let me get your treat?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, yes, good, awesome.” Charlie nods, and his knee starts bouncing again as Hugh gets the popcorn open, poured out into a bowl. 

 

He’s going to have to find something less messy that Charlie will like, because he could probably do this without having to stop and take care of himself, but not if he’s getting the powder licked and sucked from his fingers. He could just feed him actual pieces of cheese… maybe some other things. There’s only so much cheese a person can eat, isn’t there?

 

He strokes through Charlie’s hair and lets him lick the powder anyway, and tries to think of things he can ask him to do. He doesn’t want to use this to force self improvement, not unless that’s something that Charlie asks for. He just needs… arbitrary little things, ways for Charlie to earn the praise and the little nibbles of popcorn.

 

“Why don’t you tell me about how work was last night?” He suggests. It will at least give him time to think of something real to have him do.

 

He still feeds Charlie a few pieces as he talks-- after all, he had asked him to and Charlie had complied, so while it may not be ‘following orders’ exactly, it’s still something. He’d talked about his last day at work over dinner, he has nothing new to add on his end, but he likes hearing Charlie talk. He doesn’t think Charlie’s day at work sounds at all pleasant or fulfilling, but Charlie betrays no sense of upset over it…

 

“Why don’t you do something for me, and be a good boy? Why don’t you… bring me a drink? Anything from my fridge.”

 

He supposes it’s cold out for that, but he doesn’t want to wait while Charlie makes a cup of tea, he wants him to come right back. He knows he has orange juice in there, he might have half a bottle of chilled wine… He has glass-fronted cupboards, Charlie won’t have any trouble finding something, and what he finds doesn’t matter. The glasses are all on display, and Hugh honestly doesn’t care about anything but having a reason to reward him.

 

It takes him a minute, but he comes back with a glass of orange juice and an uncertain expression. 

 

“So, you didn’t have any vodka in there, but I got you a virgin screwdriver.”

 

“Orange juice?”

 

“Yeah. I guess it’s just orange juice. Is that good?”

 

“That’s very good, come here.” He holds up a piece of popcorn, taking the glass before allowing Charlie to eat it from his hand. Charlie’s tongue swirls over his fingers, and he makes a little contented humming sound.

 

Hugh sips at the juice a little, and offers Charlie some, before setting it aside for later.

 

“Do you want me to read again?”

 

“Would you like that?”

 

“Well, will you like that?”

 

“Yes. But… not if it’s… not if you might not enjoy it.”

 

“No, I’ll-- I mean, if you tell me it’s good, if I get the popcorn, then I like it. Like before-- I thought it felt good before.”

 

“Then why don’t you get my laptop from the coffee table, and we’ll find something.”

 

He instructs Charlie through typing in his password, and rewards him for getting the laptop started, and they settle against each other side by side, where he can pet at his hair and feed him, just as he had when they had played the game together.

 

“Just search for something you’re interested about.” He prompts, after getting google pulled up.

 

Charlie types in ‘CAT’, giving Hugh a questioning glance, relaxing at the nod and the offered popcorn. 

 

“Anything you’re interested in, that makes it easier.” He nods. “Just do the best job you can reading it to me, that’s good…”

 

“The… dome-stick cat-- uhh, no, that’s not even words--”

 

“Felis silvestris catus. It’s the latin name for domestic cats.”

 

“Latin. Huh. Um… is a small…” He swallows, leg starting up again, and he shakes his head. “There’s a lot of words on this page.”

 

“Shh, all right, come here…” Hugh soothes, giving him another piece of popcorn. “Let’s find something else, you don’t have to do this.”

 

“No, I have to, I want to-- it doesn’t count if you just give it to me, it’s not real.”

 

“Charlie, Charlie, it’s all right. It is real. The popcorn is real, and you make me happy. But I’m not happy when I see you make yourself upset.”

 

“I mean I want to do this right.”

 

“And we will. But… why don’t we do something else?”

 

“You’re sure? The first time you wanted me to read good.”

 

“The first time, I-- We weren’t thinking about it properly, it just happened. And… yes, I did like that you were trying to read, that you were trusting yourself to do something hard… but it was very different. That was a game with just a few words here and there, and this is long paragraphs, some of the words are long, and the print is small… I believe that you can, but I also believe it’s not fun, and the stress of it is going to pull you out of feeling good.”

 

“You really believe I can?”

 

“Yes. Another time. With more practice. Absolutely. But… not if it’s going to be stressful. Now come here.” He holds up a piece of popcorn.

 

“What do you want me to do for that one?”

 

“I want you to come over here… and get it.” Hugh smiles, giving it a little shake for emphasis. “And lick the powder off for me. That’s all you need to do.”

 

“Really? That seems like not a lot, that seems like it’s just for me and not for you.”

 

“Charlie… I promise you, it will make me very happy.”

 

“Okay.” Charlie leans in, taking it gently, tongue attentive as it takes away every trace of cheese powder. He pulls back, surprised, when Hugh doesn’t quite stifle a moan. “Holy shit, dude, you’re… like, into this.”

 

“Yes. I am.” He blushes, trying his best not to get flustered. “Do we need to stop? Or is this all right?”

 

Charlie looks at him a long moment. Hugh watches the shift in the light of his eyes, and the width of his pupils, watches as he weighs out how he feels.

 

“I don’t get it, but… I really like that you’re into it.” He nods. “And-- we just do this, and that’s-- you’re into just this?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Charlie licks his lips, and Hugh feels his breath catch at the sight. 

 

“I mean… like, I don’t want you to do me or anything, but I really… think I like that you’re into me. That’s-- that’s cool? Like… this is all okay? It’s okay with you, too?”

 

He threads the fingers of his clean hand through Charlie’s hair, gentle. “You are allowed to want to feel desirable, without wanting anything sexual to take place. I find you very attractive. I like spending time with you. And… this, having your mouth around my fingers, having you focused on pleasing me, it is arousing.”

 

“That’s so embarrassing, though. I mean, isn’t it?” Charlie grins and hides his face a moment, and then looks back up at him. “I mean, it’s… It’s weird. I like it. But isn’t it?”

 

“Yes. It is a bit. But I think finding ways of enjoying our time together is worth a little embarrassment.”

 

“I enjoy spending time with you.” He shrugs and scoots a little closer. “Even when we’re not doing anything. I think it’s cool, I think you’re cool, I like it.”

 

“I enjoy spending time with you even when we’re not doing anything, too. But I want to find more ways of being intimate, that you can enjoy… and I love the way that you look at me when-- I have dreams, where you look at me like I mean the world to you, and there are times when… when you look to me to reassure you, and it makes me feel… I would do anything to earn and keep the trust that you place in me. I would do anything.”

 

“Oh. Cool.” Charlie says, in that unreal little soft voice that seems so alien to him, so gentle and quiet. So, for lack of better word,  _ good _ .

 

“I would like to kiss you.”

“Like… on the mouth?” He licks his lips. “I mean because I’m okay with that! Like… no tongue, maybe?”

 

“No tongue.” Hugh promises. He leans in, his lips starting at Charlie’s cheek, slowly making his way to his lips in a series of brief touches. He doesn’t take too much time once he does reach them, he doesn’t want to push any boundaries. He just wants that moment of contact.

 

“That’s nice.” Charlie sighs, when they part, his eyes closed. “It wasn’t even weird or anything, that’s just… that was cool.”

 

“I’m very glad. I’m not here to make you feel weird, Charlie, I’m here to make you feel safe. I’m here to make you feel good. And I am here to make you feel wanted-- desirable. Still safe, always that, but not because you are not wanted-- because you are wanted, and valued, and… and respected.”

 

Charlie surges forward, kissing the corner of his mouth, before sitting back again to regard him with exactly the look he’d dreamed of.

 

“I want to feel like that.”

 

“Why don’t you do something for me? Why don’t you feed me one?” Hugh holds the bowl out. 

 

Charlie nods slowly, taking a single piece and holding it out, holding incredibly still.as it’s taken. He relaxes when Hugh returns the favor, feeding him again, and doesn’t tense up as his own fingers are licked clean.

 

“So… you really like this, huh? Um-- do you like the cheese powder or do you like me?”

 

“I like you.” He takes Charlie’s hand, kissing his palm gently. He is certainly tempted to do more, to do a lot more licking and sucking than necessary, but that too might push a boundary. At least to him it represents one. “Although the cheese powder is… certainly not bad.”

 

“No, I like the cheese powder a lot. I mean, you, too.”

 

“I like you. I like putting my lips on you. I like looking at you, and being near you. And I want to put my lips on you… and I want to feel your lips on me-- and your tongue, very much. In every way that you are comfortable with. I want to do this… and feel the way that you make me feel. I want to touch you in the places you like to be touched, and I want to let you touch me, any way that you want. I want that, Charlie… and then I may want a moment to myself, because you do turn me on. Will that be all right? Will you be all right waiting for me, if I need to step out of the room and take care of myself? And will you be all right with me thinking about you while I do?”

 

“Um… yeah. Yeah, definitely? You, uh, you’d think about…?” He gestures to himself. 

 

“Oh, yes.”

 

“And… if I wait, you’d feed me again?”

 

“Anything you want. If you can be a very good boy and wait for me a little while, I’ll feed you anything you want.”

 

Charlie nods, leaning in. “And… I can touch you any way I want?”

 

“Please. No pressure-- you can put your head on my shoulder, or kiss me the way we’ve kissed before, or hold my hand… or anything.”

 

Charlie pets at Hugh’s cheek a moment, considering, before moving his hand down to a shoulder. 

 

“This is good?”

 

“This is very good. May I put my arm around you?”

 

Charlie gives the popcorn bowl a pointed glance.

 

“Charlie, no-- of course you’re-- Of course I will, but this is  _ important _ . This isn’t because you want a reward, this is either because you are comfortable and you want it, or you don’t. Now. If you say yes, or if you say no, you will get the popcorn for giving me an honest answer. You will get a reward for enforcing your boundaries and looking out for yourself, not just for pleasing me by touching me the way you think I want, or allowing me to touch you. Do you understand? I am not training you to like me, I am… I am taking care of you in a way I hope we both like, really like, but-- but it’s important that you tell me no if that’s the right answer.”

 

“I don’t know about right answers, man, like… I don’t know.”

 

“What’s right for you?”

 

“I want you to put your arm around me. Like at the art museum.”

 

“All right.” Hugh nods, giving him a couple of pieces of popcorn and cuddling him in closer. “Thank you for telling me what you want from me, that’s what I need the most from you.”

 

“I liked that, at the museum… and I liked all the things you said to me. Like, about… Like, you made me feel smart. For real smart. Like I understood art. Even if it was just one painting.”

 

“You did understand that painting. Better than a lot of people might.” He rests his forehead against Charlie’s temple, sighing when the hand on his shoulder strays down to his chest. There’s nothing sexual about the touch, though he thinks he could easily find it arousing, if the right mood returned. As it is, it soothes him. “I’m glad I got to show it to you and listen to your thoughts… I think you understand things more than people give you credit for.”

 

“I dunno about that.”

 

“Well. I do.”

 

Charlie cuddles in, pressing his face into Hugh’s chest and throwing his legs over his lap, and Hugh wraps his other arm around him in return, and rests his chin on Charlie’s head. 

 

“What happened after the… the part you told me? What happened with the jerk friend and the painting?”

 

“I don’t know, really. Not the whole story. I could look it up sometime. If the story ends badly, that doesn’t mean yours will, just because of how things feel now… there are so many other paintings that might know you, so to speak. We’ll find them all.”

 

“Sure.” Charlie snuggles up towards his neck, hand slipping down towards his waist, and Hugh shifts to accommodate him, rubbing his back, craning his neck to kiss his temple.

 

“I would take you… to all the places anyone ever told you you didn’t belong.” He promises. “Everywhere. I’ll take you everywhere. I’ll give you everything… I promise, Charlie, I promise I am never… ever going to hurt you again.”

 

“You didn’t.” Charlie promises right back, lips moving against Hugh’s throat, right at the edge of his shirt collar. “You didn’t hurt me, stop saying you hurt me… you don’t, you don’t know, you don’t even know, you never hurt me…”

 

He squeezes tight, hides his face there a long moment and shakes, maybe they both shake. Hugh only knows he can’t stop stroking Charlie’s back, his hair, holding him close. He wants to believe that he didn’t hurt him, but he doesn’t know if he ever will, for all the times Charlie may tell him.

 

“Well then I won’t let anyone.”

 

He waits for Charlie to tell him it’s a stupid promise to make-- that he can’t keep it, that it isn’t realistic. That it’s too late. Charlie doesn’t say any of that. He lifts his head, and he very gently kisses the end of Hugh’s nose.

 

“Okay.” He says, his voice soft.

 

“If anyone ever does, I mean… You just call me, I-- I’ll fix it somehow. I’ll fix it.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I mean it, Charlie, I do.”

 

“Yeah, I know.” He smiles, and this time his kiss finds Hugh’s lips. “But you don’t have to worry about me. I’m like… pretty indestructible.”

 

“I want to take care of you… I want to do this  _ right _ . I need to do this right.”

 

“Okay. Well… so, you will. I believe that. You’re really good to me. But like… just don’t worry, okay? And… like… we’ll be fine, right?”

 

“Yes. We’ll be fine.” He nods. “Please… I want to kiss you right now. I want-- where would you like me to?”

 

“Anywhere I ask?” Charlie grins suddenly, the same sort of expectant look he had gotten, when he’d begun to predict the pattern of being given pieces of popcorn that first somewhat disastrous time. That look of a boy unused to being given sweet things discovering that they were his for the asking… That look which broke Hugh’s heart and then made it new again.

 

“Yes, darling, anywhere.”

 

“Oh, uh…” He flushes, squirms, the unexpected pet name throwing him off-guard, but certainly not displeasing him. “Okay, here.”

 

He holds out his hand, palm up, and Hugh takes it, cradles it gently and presses a slow, soft kiss right there. 

 

“Here?” He points to his cheek, once his hand has been released, question dancing in his eyes. A question Hugh absolutely will not leave hanging there unanswered. 

 

When Charlie points to his other cheek, he barely mouths the word, and the delight at being offered any reward he might claim is at war with disbelief that he should have it, that he should keep having it. His other cheek is kissed even more fervently, Hugh holds himself there a long moment even after, holds him close and breathes him in. He smells vaguely of the pub even when he hasn’t been there all day, as though the place is soaked into him, and Hugh wonders how much time away it would take before he lost every trace of it. He wonders if he could take that time and take him somewhere, anywhere. Even if ‘anywhere’ was a hotel up the block and not anything exotic or fancy or wonderful… even if ‘anywhere’ was a week right here on his own couch.

 

Hugh pulls away at last, hand curled protectively around the back of Charlie’s neck, thumb stroking at his hair. 

 

Charlie points to his lips. Hugh feels the air vacuum itself out of his lungs. 

 

He is slow, he is careful, and maybe the kiss is not sexual, but it is not chaste, either. They meet in the middle somewhere, no tongues and no slobber and no shortage of passion. No shortage of closeness, of the feeling that they need to crawl inside each other’s skin just to breathe again and this kiss is the only way to do it, and it lights him up, it lights him on fire, but whatever line Charlie has drawn remains untouched, uncrossed. 

 

He pulls back at last, meeting Charlie’s eyes, the question in them a little less desperate as he taps his shoulder.

 

Hugh drops a kiss there, and the tee shirt he’s wearing absolutely stinks of that pub, but he’s warm through it, and there are worse things…

 

“All right?” He asks.

 

“Yeah. You really mean anywhere, huh?”

 

“Anywhere you like and nowhere you don’t.”

 

“Yeah, but… anywhere?”

 

Hugh just nods. Charlie thinks it over a moment, and taps his neck, squirming through the chaste kiss that follows.

 

“What if I said, like… armpit? Only don’t, that would be so ticklish and probably super weird.”

 

“I’d try it once.” He laughs. “Though it sounds like you don’t want me to.”

 

“No. Um… but here?” He sucks his lower lip into his mouth, tracing a little half-circle over his chest.

 

“There… there sounds perfect.” He leans in, nuzzling his way along the short path traced, stopping right over his heart to press a kiss there.

 

“My turn, though, like, do I get a turn, with you?”

 

“You can have a turn with me. Where would you like to kiss me?”

 

“I dunno. That’s a lot of options. There’s a lot of good places, do you, uh… do you wanna ask, and then I’ll, like, just the same?”

 

“All right.” Hugh offers his hand. “Then start here. Just the same.”

 

The kiss is exploratory, nuzzling in a long moment before and after, Charlie lets out a sigh as he simply rests there, face in Hugh’s palm. 

 

“Good boy, come up here. Here?” He indicates a cheek next, taking it in the same order. It’s nice, nuzzle-y again, and the beard leaves his skin feeling… not quite rubbed raw, only enough to feel. He gets three kisses for the price of one, before Charlie pulls back to look to him for more. He grins and gives a little nod, at seeing Hugh point to his other cheek.

 

“Here?”

 

“Oh, yeah, I get it, I get it, there. Yeah, there… there is cool.” Charlie leans in, still grinning, his nose tracing along the jut of Hugh’s cheekbone before he presses his lips there. “Is that good?”

 

“Very.”

 

“You know, I feel like… you say you wanna take care of me and protect me, but like… I mean… you need me to take care of you, too, right? I mean, like, in case of riots.”

 

“Yes. I will very much need you to take care of me if there’s another riot.” Hugh taps his lips, and Charlie leans in to give him a quick peck. “You can save me from riots any time-- I really hope that’s not something that happens to me often…”

 

“Well I could also walk you home, like… there’s not always a riot but sometimes there’s just some dude. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a stalker before, probably not. But like, just… real world stuff. Stuff that’s out there. And like… you can protect me from stuff that’s in here.” He indicates his head and his chest. “And then it’s, like… That’s good, right?”

 

“I have never had a stalker.” Hugh blinks. “I don’t think it’s very likely. You can walk me home after dates anyway. You could come in when you do.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yes. We can talk longer, or we can do this again, you don’t have to run off.”

 

“I didn’t want you to think I was just walking you home ‘cause I wanted stuff from you.” Charlie shrugs. “I usually just-- I usually don’t… People don’t ask me in, like…”

 

“Given that I know you don’t care for sex, I wouldn’t have suspected that of you. Given that I like you very much, I wouldn’t have minded if you did want… stuff from me, of whatever nature. You’re allowed to want things from me. It doesn’t have to be the same things that I want, but there are things we both like…” He gives his own shoulder a tentative tap, gaze questioning.

 

“Yeah. I like some of the stuff you like, yeah. You’re liking this…?” He leans in, waiting for Hugh’s nod before dropping a little kiss to his shoulder. “I like this.”

 

“I am liking this.” He reassures him, leaning his head to the side, indicating his neck, just above the collar. It might be inviting too much, with someone else, he might find himself needing to loosen his collar and demand that all action be kept where it could be hidden the next day… he doesn’t exactly see Charlie leaving him a hickey.

 

The beard burn was something he should have considered-- Charlie is just as inclined to nuzzle in and explore here, and he takes his time with it, but that will fade easily enough… it’s still only the early afternoon, or at least not yet late afternoon, as long as there are no bite marks to hide, then Hugh thinks it’s fine.

 

He lets him take his time, lets himself just enjoy it, the roughness of the beard and the softness of the little kisses, and the way Charlie’s hands rest over his sides, the way he half slides into Hugh’s lap, the little sounds of it…

 

“That’s enough.” He says, quiet, gentle, but Charlie pulls back immediately. “Good-- thank you-- It’s not because I don’t like that.”

 

He gives into temptation, providing a couple of pieces of popcorn, doing his best not to moan at the dedication shown to cleaning his fingers off. 

 

“That’s good…” He pets at Charlie’s hair with his other hand again, stopping only when Charlie pulls back.

 

“I owe you one.” Charlie reaches over, two fingers stroking against Hugh’s chest, just to the side of his tie. “Do you want that?”

 

Hugh nods, keeps his hand on Charlie’s head, starts stroking through his hair again. He doesn’t need to pull him in, he only needs to stay connected. He definitely doesn’t need to pull him in, Charlie is perfectly content to nuzzle his way right into that spot to kiss him there.

 

“Come here…” He coaxes Charlie back out from his spot against his chest. He plucks a piece of popcorn from the bowl with a flourish. “For being my good boy.”

 

Charlie’s face lights up and he takes it, and Hugh quickly provides him with another.

 

“This is for being open with me about what you want.” He murmurs, eyelids fluttering as an even more thorough job is done of getting all the flavor from his fingers. Once they’re released, he returns to the popcorn bowl to snag two more. “This is for being honest about what you don’t want. And this… is for wanting to take care of me, too.”

 

Charlie’s gaze is adoring, as much as in any dream, and so he gathers up the rest of the bowlful in his hand. 

 

“This is for being good, always… this is for being mine.” He whispers. “And for getting every last trace of that cheese powder for me, why don’t you do that?”

 

There is a little knowing edge, a slight smirk for just a moment, not unlike that first time, the sly and happy look he’d had at figuring out the rules of the game and how to play it to some mutual advantage…

 

Charlie may think it’s strange that this would be arousing, but he understands that it is-- and Hugh can’t deny it’s a little strange. Finger sucking alone has a certain connotation, not to mention the physical sensitivity, but the fact that cheese powder is involved would normally be more of a turn-off, he’d think. He thinks it’s strange, but he also accepts it, that’s all that matters. He accepts that they can enjoy this even if they get different things out of it, it doesn’t bother him, he seems pleased to be able to do something for Hugh which is within his own comfort zone.

 

He doesn’t stop, long after there must be no trace of cheese, just goes from one finger to the next and back again, lavishing attention on each one, the occasional glances up through his lashes suggesting he knows  _ exactly _ what he’s doing.

 

He pulls away slowly when Hugh can’t hold back a moan, leaning in close.

 

“Is that good?”

 

“Yes… yes, it, it very much is. I’m afraid we’re out of popcorn, ah…”

 

“Well… maybe you could give me something else?” Charlie licks his lips, nervous, excited, not at home in the role of outrageous flirt but gamely trying it on. “I mean… the cheese powder’s the best part, anyway, and…”

 

He shrugs, eyes the bowl, looks over at Hugh’s still-wet fingers.

 

“I cannot believe I am doing this for you.” He groans. “You awful, spoiled boy, if you weren’t so terribly good for me, I would never… I would never in my life, if you weren’t such a sweet thing for me.”

 

Charlie grins, it is pure, unfettered happiness in its finest form, as Hugh dips his fingers back into the cheese powder coating the bowl. 

 

At this point, the idea of feeling guilty about using Charlie is laughable-- he’s clearly been out-manipulated, the man has him exactly where he wants him. For some reason… Hugh can’t figure out what that reason is, exactly, when it isn’t about sex and it isn’t about cheese, not when he could have asked to lick the bowl and been told yes.

 

Or maybe it is about sex. Not the act, but the notion-- the idea of being attractive, which he does want. The feeling building between them, the satisfaction of knowing he has an effect… and trusting that nothing will come of it that he doesn’t want.

 

And it’s weird, it is weird, he just has to accept that. It’s weird and he’s starting to like it a little more than he would have been okay with, with anyone else. 

 

It’s not bad for a first time, really. He’d had worse and weirder. Well, worse.

 

He’s harder than he’s been in a long time, when he finally puts a stop to the whole thing, tugging Charlie’s hair gently and taking his hand back.

 

“You’re going to have to give me a minute.” He excuses. Charlie looks down to his lap, expression going from confused and worried to immensely pleased with himself.

 

“Yeah, cool, I can wait.” He nods.

 

“Good-- you do that. I’ll be right back-- I’ll be thinking about you, so you think about me and just be good until I am, all right?”

 

Charlie leans into the hand still in his hair with a little grin. “You bet.”

 

“Good boy.” Hugh withdraws his hand only because it is a necessary step in leaving the couch and ducking into his bathroom. The hall half-bath, because even though it’s barely closer than his bedroom, those few steps seem like pure torture.

 

He doesn’t think about the things they won’t do. He only thinks about that adoring gaze and those lips wrapped around his fingers, and the trust he is never going to feel he has earned, and his hand is already slick with spit, and the best part is that it isn’t his, and there are a lot of things they won’t have that don’t matter, because he has this.

 

He thinks about being kissed, and about the feel of Charlie’s beard against his neck, and about the things that he could have. Mostly, he just needs to think about that knowing look and the tension strung between them and the heat, and that tongue swirling around his fingers, he never does need it to be anywhere else, it’s more than enough to remember what they did do.

 

When he’s done, not just with the act itself but with cleaning up, with trying to look slightly presentable again, he opens the bathroom door to find Charlie sitting on the floor just outside.

 

“Is everything all right?” He asks, but Charlie doesn’t seem upset, he bounces right up to his feet with as sunny a smile as ever.

 

“Yeah. Um, just… just waiting, like you said.”

 

“You can always wait on the couch, I’m sure it’s more comfortable…”

 

“I was comfortable. Um… I mean, if it’s okay? I just wanted to be closer, I guess… You said to think about you, and I was thinking about you, and then I thought, wow, I’d like to just be, like… right next to you. But not, you know… Not interrupting, or uh, anything like that.”

 

Hugh cups his cheek, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

 

“You can wait wherever you’re comfortable. However close you need to be.” He promises. “What do you need? You’ve been very good and very patient… we can cuddle, or even take a nap if you’d like that. We could finish off that juice you brought me earlier… if you’re still hungry we could have something a little more substantial than popcorn, but it’s not close to dinner…”

 

“That’s okay, I can still eat. Like, I can always eat. But a nap is good. I could do whatever you want to.”

 

“You finish off that juice for me, then, and I’ll fix a snack and put the kettle on.” He nods. “And then if you feel like a nap is good, we’ll have one.”

 

He isn’t at all surprised to have Charlie follow him into the kitchen, but he is pleased. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very short, because the next cohesive bit is so long that I didn't want to smash them together... but hopefully it's also sweet!

“You should come over.” Charlie says, and even over the phone Hugh has no trouble reading his expression, he’s heard that tone often enough to know the little smile that goes with it.

 

“Are you sure? I mean… your, ah, your roommate situation won’t be…?”

 

“Frank’s into way weirder shit than we are, but no, I meant… like, you should come to the pub.”

 

Hugh frowns. It could certainly be worse, but he really has no interest in being in the pub during operating hours, it’s not exactly his scene, even if he had not had the first impression of it that he did of the place, and he really isn’t keen to spend any time with Charlie’s friends.

 

He can’t say no to that tone, to the smile he imagines so clearly on the other end. He’s an adult and he can certainly spend five minutes in the company of people who he doesn’t like, and who do not like him. 

 

“Suppose I pick you up there at the end of your shift?” He offers. “Name a time. I’ll come by and then we can have the rest of the night to ourselves?”

 

“Yeah, okay. It should be a night I’m not closing, then. You probably don’t wanna, like… come out here in the middle of the night and then walk home and then have to go to work in the morning at, like… early and stuff.”

 

“A night you aren’t closing would be good. If you have an early night, we can have dinner, but we could also just… you could walk me home and come up and… you could stay.”

 

“The night? Yeah, that would be cool.” Charlie says, and Hugh hears him whispering something under his breath, away from the receiver. “Wednesday? I just gotta finish all the stuff before opening, and then I can get off.”

 

“Wednesday.” He makes a note on his calendar. “What time?”

 

“Uhhhh… it depends on what shape the place is in. I could call you?”

 

“All right.” Hugh agrees. Better than showing up to an estimated time only to have to wait around with those awful people while Charlie finishes up… Every time he thinks he ought to be more charitable towards Charlie’s friends, Charlie will make some off-hand comment, and he’ll realize how awful they all are and how normal it’s become, or how normal it’s always been… how normal it absolutely should not be.

 

“So I’ll call you on Wednesday?”

 

“You had better.” He glances over at the door to his office-- closed, no shadows moving past the window. He still lowers his voice a little. “Or there won’t be any reward in it for you… will there?”

 

“Oh, we’re talking rewards?” Charlie says, and Hugh can picture that grin, too, and the gleam in his eye, can imagine him curling around the phone a little to keep their conversation more private, though that part is pure speculation. He’s not sure where Charlie is calling from or who might be around.

 

“Only for good boys.”

 

“I mean I think I’m pretty good. I think I’ve been, uh, behaving.”

 

“Then you had better think about what you want, hadn’t you?”

 

“I want to take you someplace nice. Not just a place where you stand around eating sandwiches, like… a really nice place.”

 

“You don’t have to do that.”

 

“No, I want to. I can shower and change after work and take you to a real nice place. Like, fancy.”

 

Hugh nods, before he can recover his voice, though he’s aware it’s not exactly useful. “Well I would like that very much, Charlie. If you like, you can bring a change of clothes over to my place. If going back to yours would be out of our way.”

 

“Cool, great. Then we’ll do that, I’ll do that. And I’m gonna show you a really nice time and you’ll really like it!”

 

“I know I will. Call me-- I’ve got to get back to work, but I’m looking forward to Wednesday.”

 

His door opens as he’s hanging up, but mercifully not during anything more embarrassing than ‘talk to you then’ and a rather besotted smile. He gets back to his office hours and going over papers, but a portion of his mind is on Wednesday evening. 

 

He’s thinking about Wednesday, just in the back of his mind, up until it finally arrives, and he shows up at Paddy’s Pub dressed for something much, much nicer. 

 

“Hey, you!” Charlie greets brightly. He’s an utter mess, and he’s carrying a clothes hanger with a garbage bag over it in lieu of a proper garment bag, and he is somehow the most welcome sight Hugh can imagine. He keeps a more than respectful distance between them as he leans in to kiss Hugh’s cheek, smelling strongly of both harsh cleaning solvents and cheap beer, and something else that Hugh doesn’t care to hazard a guess at.

 

Charlie’s friends are leaning against the bar, regarding them skeptically.

 

“Science bitch.” Mac greets, pouting slightly when Charlie shushes him.

 

“Oh, that one never gets old.” Hugh rolls his eyes. “Well, we’ll be off, dinner plans.”

 

“I just don’t get it.” Dee interrupts before he can hustle Charlie out, and Hugh sometimes thinks she’s probably the least awful of the group, outside of Charlie. As far as he can tell, the two of them are both damaged as well, but he doesn’t feel it’s much of an excuse. 

 

“Just don’t get what?” He asks, and he is fully prepared to explain just why it is he’s with Charlie, a thing he’s come to understand better himself in the time they’ve been seeing each other.

 

“Like… now Charlie’s into dudes?” She gestures to him, and then turns and gestures to Mac. “First Mac’s gay, now Charlie’s got a boyfriend, and I’m just… I mean I’m doing fine, thanks, but what is happening? I mean what’s next, you know? Dennis strolls back in and says ‘oh, sorry, you guys, I was gonna have a great life without you but now I realize I’m also super gay’, and then, I mean, and then is Frank gonna get a boyfriend, and I’m just standing here like, like--”

 

Mac has left at some point during this nigh-incomprehensible rambling, and Hugh envies him, which is a strange position to find himself in.

 

“I mean, Dee, to be fair, Frank did marry me so I could have health insurance that one time.” Charlie shrugs. “It’s not unprecedented.”

 

“Yeah, but that was sick and weird, Charlie, and this is…” She makes a face. “Normal.”

 

“I don’t want to know.” Hugh groans. “I just want to go to dinner. But thank you for that… highly unwanted bit of information.”

 

“Babe, it was just for health insurance. I mean, like… he’s my dad, probably, maybe. It wasn’t anything weird.”

 

“I know, no, of course-- nothing ‘weird’.” He says, although it’s incredibly weird any way it’s spun. But then, health benefits could be given to a spouse, and not to an adult child of Charlie’s age, no matter the legitimacy of the claim to parenthood or the need. 

 

“I mean it is really weird that all this is happening and I don’t have a boyfriend.” Dee cuts back in. 

 

“That’s really not my problem.” Hugh sighs, his hand going to the small of Charlie’s back. “Now we really do have to be going.”

 

“Yeah, I made reservations.”

 

“What? How do you even-- since when do you make reservations?”

 

“Since I found out it’s actually really easy and also I have Frank’s credit card?” Charlie says, as though this should have been perfectly obvious.

 

“Oh, Charlie, don’t commit credit card fraud.”

 

“Well, I mean, technically I feel like I deserve this? And if he didn’t want me to keep taking his credit card he wouldn’t hide it in the same place, and… he’s a terrible roommate sometimes and also, like…”

 

“No, Charlie totally deserves to steal Frank’s credit card.” Dee nods. “I mean all of us do, he’s a really shitty father and Charlie didn’t even get to grow up with, like… anything.”

 

“I don’t think I trust any of you to be a real moral authority or a legal authority on the subject of credit card fraud, but the fact that Frank Reynolds is undoubtedly a  _ terrible _ father really doesn’t help much if the restaurant takes issue--”

 

“Charlie, where are you going? Guigino’s?” She asks, ignoring Hugh completely.

 

“Yeah, classy date night, where else would we go?”

 

She turns back to Hugh with an I-told-you-so expression. “See? No problem. We’ve  _ all _ used Frank’s credit card at Guigino’s. Anyway, he doesn’t even care, I know you probably think he’s poor because he lives with Charlie, but he’s loaded, he’s not going to notice and neither is the restaurant.”

 

Hugh doesn’t feel good about it exactly, but he feels like it’s very much a problem for another night. The reservations are made, and perhaps the restaurant in question considers this credit card to be… some kind of company funds, or perhaps no one but him even cares at all. He has a headache thinking about it, and he has a headache dealing with Charlie’s friends. 

 

Charlie finally lets Hugh usher him out, seeming in perfectly good spirits himself.

 

“Normal.” He says to himself, more than to Hugh, but with such a fragile satisfaction that credit card fraud seems a little less serious than it had before. At least under these circumstances. While Hugh had been wearied by the gang and all talk of their shenanigans, this was Charlie’s takeaway-- one of his friends considers their relationship normal.

 

“Pedestrian, even.”

 

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” Charlie turns to him, slightly surprised.

 

“I don’t mind at all.” He promises. He may be the most normal thing in Charlie’s life, cheese popcorn and everything, and that hurts to think about, but at the same time he’s proud.

 

He straightens up in the hall half-bath while Charlie uses the master bathroom’s shower, and he comes out in his museum outfit, smelling a good deal nicer, hair plastered back still-wet and a stray bead of water trickling down the side of his neck.

 

Hugh reaches out to wipe it away with his thumb before it reaches his shirt collar, though his hair is dripping at the back of his collar enough that it’s a meaningless gesture.

 

“There’s my handsome date.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You look precisely like the man who’s going to take me out to a classy restaurant.” He nods, his arms settling around Charlie, the two of them leaning into each other. The tie, which had been so ridiculous that first time he’d seen it, has… grown on him, just a little. Every time the picture of them at the museum pops up on his phone, he likes it a little more. It’s hideous and outdated and worn in complete earnest. It’s the earnestness he supposes he really likes.

 

“Great, let’s leave before that guy shows up trying to take you there.” Charlie nudges his nose into Hugh’s cheek, snickering at his own joke. “Hey, you’re okay with this, right? The credit card thing? Because… I mean, if you’re really not, then I guess, like… I could go to an ATM and put in Frank’s PIN and get the money out first?”

 

“Darling, that… honestly does not make a difference.” Hugh kisses the corner of his mouth. “I’m just not used to what normal is for your friends…”

 

“Well, us, for starters.” Charlie smiles, and Hugh can’t argue with that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a boy and his scientist growing closer, in spite of or because of the things the gang tends to say when Hugh comes around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to the people who let me know I had accidentally posted chapter six at the top of chapter seven! I forgot to mark it as posted and copy-pasted the two chapters together.

    Showing up to the pub without any attempt on Charlie’s behalf at getting him there wasn’t exactly what Hugh had ever planned on. He was still trying to get comfortable with dropping in for a minute here and there when Charlie asked him to come and meet him.

 

    This, he supposes, is a sign of just how far he has fallen for the man, because after hearing about his anticipated back to back shifts, he had taken it upon himself to bring dinner by right at opening time, before there was much chance of anyone in the place. He’s never seen the bar busy, but he’s seen a couple of familiar patrons before.

 

    Charlie is behind the bar with Mac, but neither notice the door opening, and he doubts either would if it was not flung wide with some force and perhaps an announcing shout, deep into some argument as they are. His quietly slipping in with a brown paper bag is no distraction at all.

 

    “No, no, you need to get your head out of your ass!” Charlie screeches, flailing. “My head is actually exactly where I want it to be, and you haven’t been happy for me, you haven’t wanted to hang out with me hardly ever lately, unless I say I have plans and then you throw a fit, and you even like Dee more than you like me now, and I just want you to be happy that I’m happy!”

 

    “Well, I mean, first of all, how can you be happy? Because you’re totally different now. And second of all, maybe my head’s where I want it to be, maybe I’m happy and you should be happy for me.”

 

    “But you aren’t-- But you-- Hugh _likes_ me, Mac. He’s _nice_ to me. And you keep making fun of him like maybe you don’t get that the guy you’re in love with is supposed to treat you nice. Like, you make a big deal about how you’re gonna go out and get laid, and then it doesn’t work out, and you go home, and you act like it’s okay, and Dee acts like it’s okay, and Frank acts like it’s okay, and I actually am okay. I actually am okay, because someone’s actually nice to me and says nice things to me and does nice things for me, and that’s how it’s supposed to be with someone! And he apologizes for shit, even when I don’t think he has to! And you’re just, you’re so used to not getting apologized to and you think that’s normal, but Dee’s right, what I have is normal, and you’re just hung up on someone who treated you like shit!”

 

    “I’m not hung up on anybody.” Mac grumbles.

 

    At this point, though, Mac could say anything, or do anything, or grow a second head, and Hugh would not notice.

 

    “Yeah. Sure. Fine. But like, when you go out trying to get laid at riots or whatever, maybe look for a guy who, like… if you were getting attacked by zombies, and he got bit, he’d tell you to shoot him instead of covering it up until he bit you and you all died and came back as zombies, and not, like… the same thing you’re used to.”

 

    “I mean, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard--”

 

    “Because Dennis would let us all get turned into zombies, like, you know it.”

 

    “--And you need to stop watching zombie movies or something--”

 

    “Well that’s not even my point, okay, forget about the zombies, just-- like… get over it. Get over thinking it’s normal to get stepped all over all the time. And like… be happy for me ‘cause I’ve got something that’s not that.”

 

    “And I mean, I never had sex with Dennis, so, your whole argument is…” Mac turns just enough to see Hugh standing by the door, his argument trailing off. He gives a nod, and then turns and leaves without so much as a ‘science bitch’, but it’s enough to alert Charlie to Hugh’s presence anyway.

 

    “Oh. Hey. Hey. When did you get here?”

 

    “Somewhere before ‘the guy you’re in love with’.” He steps forward at last, unfrozen, crossing the pub in a few long strides and passing the paper bag across the bar. “I brought you a cheesesteak. And an orange. And a marshmallow square. Charlie…”

 

    “Yeah? Dude, you didn’t have to do this…” He grins, though there’s something uncertain under it.

 

    “Well, I… I did, actually. Because I knew you wouldn’t be able to get dinner until late, and you’d probably just call a bag of pretzels and a pitcher of beer dinner, and-- and because I love you. And I wanted to.”

 

    Charlie looks at him a long moment, holding the paper bag with his dinner in it to his chest, and then he regards the bar between them before setting the bag down and rushing to get out from behind it.

 

    It is, like their first kiss, not exactly a kiss. It’s only a rush to get as close as possible, lips included, but not prioritized. The pub is not empty, but the die-hard drunks pay them no mind at all.

 

    “You didn’t have to.” Charlie repeats, though it feels more like ‘thank you’.

 

    “You deserve it.”

 

    “I love you… like, a lot, like… more than anything.”

 

    “Come over, when you get off…” Hugh whispers, nuzzling his way towards Charlie’s ear. “Come spend the night with me. I’m going to miss you the entire time we’re apart-- and I love you more than anything, Charlie, but I am not spending all night in this pub. I have to write a peer review and I have to be functional at work tomorrow, and I don’t think your friends are ready for me to be… quite so present. But I’m going to miss you. And I want you to come and stay with me. Will you?”

 

    “Uh, yeah. It’ll be a little late but yeah. I won’t let them talk me into closing by myself, or like… at all, even, I’m… I’m not supposed to be closing. I’ve been here all day…” He groans. “I won’t be too late.”

 

    “Here…” He fishes through his pockets, until he finds his keys, taking the spare off the keyring. “If you’re ever coming over late, you can let yourself in.”

 

    “Yeah?”

 

    “Please.” Hugh gives his cheek a kiss before pulling back, meeting his eyes. “Whenever you want.”

 

    “Okay well I’ll see you at your place.” Charlie grins, hand wandering to his cheek. “Get home safe!”

 

    “I will.” Hugh promises. “It is still quite light out, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

 

    Still, it feels nice knowing Charlie worries about him… that Charlie thinks about his safety. Perhaps feels a little responsible after saving him in the riot-- that did make sense. Doing something for someone engendered a feeling of responsibility to them… a subconscious desire to do so again as necessary. Hugh doesn’t think that lessens the sweetness of it at all.

 

    He’s done with his work when Charlie does get in that night, sitting up with a cup of tea, his things spread across the coffee table.

 

    “Come here, dear.” He sets his cup aside and opens his arms, and Charlie shuffles over to crawl into his lap with a soft sigh. “Tired?”

 

    “Mmf. Long day.” He tucks his head in against Hugh’s neck. He reeks of the pub… but he’s so sweet and so pliant, so cuddly… he can hardly find it in his heart to complain.

 

    “You work so hard…” He snakes his hand in to rub circles over Charlie’s middle, feeling him warm and soft through his tee shirt. “You need someone to take care of you… don’t you, dear? When you get off of work? Someone to look after you when you’re tired from a long day?”

 

    Charlie hums and squirms a little, and when Hugh nuzzles in against his neck, he giggles softly and grabs on, his arms around Hugh’s shoulders.

 

    “You?”

 

    “Yes, me.” He kisses along his jaw, light and soft. “I’m taking care of you. You come here when you’ve had a long day, love, and I’ll take care of you, any time you need me to.”

 

    “No one… no one’s ever done that for me. Take care of me any time I--”

 

    “Any time you _want_.” Hugh whispers, one arm tightening around Charlie’s waist, the other hand sliding up from his belly to rest over his heart. “Has no one ever…? Not since you were a child?”

 

    “Not… like, ever.”

 

    “Well I will. When you want it, I will. You only ever need to tell me you want me to, I will.” He promises, heart aching. Ever? Not even as a boy? No wonder he was so tentative, it wasn’t a lack of desire alone, he must have always feared losing it all… having it taken away.

 

    “Take care of me.” Charlie whispers, snuggling in tight. “All the time, whenever, when I come here, always, take care of me. And I’ll take care of you, and I won’t let anyone bother you, I won’t let anyone hurt you or mess with you or anything, ever.”

 

    “We’ll take care of each other.” Hugh kisses his temple. There’s no point in telling Charlie that no one is going to hurt him, when he can just as easily say he trusts him to take care of him… “You’ll keep me safe. And I’ll keep you warm.”

 

    Charlie’s head pops up again, his eyes wide and shining. Hugh strokes his cheek with one trembling hand, only able to hope whatever Charlie finds in his own face reassures him.

 

    “Warm?” He whispers.

 

    “Warm.” Hugh nods.

 

    “In bed with you? Like… all night?”

 

    “Where else should I want you? In bed with me, darling Charlie, all night… Safe and warm, the both of us.”

 

    “I want that.” He licks his lips, nodding. “With you.”

 

    “It’s yours. Everything I can give you is yours. Come with me now… come and wash up before bed. Do you need to borrow something to sleep in?”

 

    Charlie gestures back towards a backpack he’d dropped by the door, shaking his head. “I stopped at home to grab my stuff and leave a note for Frank so he wouldn’t think I was like in a gutter or something. But he wasn’t home so he might be in a gutter or something… but probably not. A real note with words, though.”

 

    “Very thoughtful of you. And-- that’s good.” He strokes through Charlie’s hair. “Have a quick wash, I’ve already put clean sheets on the bed for you. I’m very pleased with you, Charlie. I’m very pleased you’re here with me tonight.”

 

    Charlie smiles, tired but very pleased-looking himself, and he leans in to kiss Hugh’s cheek before climbing out of his lap. He grabs his things, and lets Hugh escort him back to the master bath, where he looks so happy just to be there that Hugh can barely stand it. The bed is made, there’s nothing he can do except wait… He finishes his now-cooled tea and does just that, until Charlie emerges, smelling less like the pub and more like Hugh’s own soap and shampoo.

 

    His pajamas consist of a clean undershirt and a pair of thermal underwear that’s seen better days and couldn’t possibly see worse ones without falling apart. There’s a hole along the top of one thigh, a wide tear that shows off a tempting bit of skin, soft and pale. The temptation to slide his fingers in for a feel is certainly present, though he wouldn’t dream of stealing that touch. Charlie’s shoulders and upper arms are an equally welcome sight, winter-pale but not without freckles… There, he might allow himself to touch, and look, and linger, the way he couldn’t that first day after the riot. Perhaps, later.

 

    “You look dead on your feet.” He beckons Charlie in for a hug, leading him to bed and tucking him in, reveling in the grateful, sweet smile aimed up at him. He smooths the blankets out over his chest, and strokes his hair and his face. “There… You’re all right? Comfy?”

 

    “Mm-hm.” Charlie wiggles down into the mattress, his hands clutching at the blankets, tugging them up under his chin.

 

    “Warm?”

 

    “Yep.”

 

    “Good…” Hugh smooths his hair down one last time. “I’m going to brush my teeth and then I’ll join you.”

 

    He expects Charlie to be asleep when he gets back, with how close he’d looked, but he’s still awake, awake enough to scoot in close once Hugh is under the covers, wrapping an arm around his chest and abandoning his pillow in favor of burying his face against Hugh’s shoulder.

 

    “There, dear boy…” He coos, voice soft. “Sleep, now. Safe and warm with me.”

 

    In the morning, his shoulder is cold, pajamas soaked through with drool. Hugh isn’t even upset. Charlie’s face is sweet and relaxed, his cheek smushed flat and his mouth slightly open.

 

    He should buy him proper pajamas, poor thing… no sleeves in winter and that hole… he should take better care of him.

 

    He tucks him back in and lets him sleep longer, before heading for the bathroom, and when he emerges to see Charlie hasn’t stirred a bit, he goes ahead and makes them breakfast-- a pot of coffee, some toast with butter and marmalade, and a nice cheese and spinach omelette. He brings it all in on a tray, beaming at the way Charlie snuffles awake, looking at him with wide eyed awe when he sees breakfast for two coming his way, scrambling to sit up.

 

    “For me?”

 

    “Of course for you.” Hugh sets the tray in Charlie’s lap. “Whichever plate you like the look of. I hope the coffee’s to your liking-- just a bit of cream and sugar, I didn’t want it to be too sweet or too light or… too anything.”

 

    “I’m not really picky.” Charlie shakes his head, grinning. He picks up the coffee, frowning into it for half a second, then looking puzzled, and then smiling warmly as he inhales the aroma of it. He sets it back down untasted, to get a bite of the omelette, grinning at the way the cheese inside stretches into long strings, at the snap of them. “You made me breakfast.”

 

    “Yes. Are you very busy today?”

 

    “Just normal busy, unless something comes up.”

 

    “Well, either way, you should have a good breakfast.” He runs his fingers through Charlie’s hair, neatening it up a bit. “Lots of protein, some carbohydrates… keep you going through everything you have to do.”

 

    “Carbohydrates.” Charlie echoes, with a little nod. “I know a lot about that, Mac thinks carbo-loading is really important. That’s the toast. That’s what gives you, uh, the energy to pack on more muscle?”

 

    “That’s the toast.” Hugh nods. “Yes, well, ideally you’d get a good balance of carbs, proteins, and the various nutrients in fruits and vegetables, since you can’t ‘pack on muscle’ with carbs alone. But he is correct in stating that the carbs provide energy.”

 

    “Which one is cheese, what’s that give me?”

 

    “Cheese is a protein, chiefly. Though of course I’m sure it has other things… I’m not a nutritionist, but I could look that up later.”

 

    “Great, well, I love protein.” Charlie smacks his lips, taking another bite. “You’re really good at, like… cooking and stuff. You’re really good at this.”

 

    “Thank you, dear. It’s really not as tricky as it looks. I’ll show you the trick to it sometime.”

 

    “Yeah? You’ll teach me to make something fancy? I can cook and all but not like… this. But I can make, uh, like… lots of other things, so-- so it’s not like you have to teach me from the beginning! But you can show me how to make this and then I could make it for you?”

 

    “I’d like that.” He nods, watching Charlie stuff an even bigger bite into his mouth with a little moan.

 

“Um-- mm, dude, this is so good-- Maybe you could… if you look up what makes cheese good for you, like… do you think I could read that? Or would it be a lot of big science words?”

 

    “I’ll see what I can find. We can look at it together the next time I see you.” He dabs at his mouth with a napkin before leaning in to kiss Charlie’s cheek. “Tonight for dinner, if you’re free.”

 

    “Yeah? Tonight? Even though… even though I slept here last night?”

 

    Hugh nods. “If you like, yes. You have your own key now, so if one of us ever has to work late, you could let yourself in. Even if we’ve spent the previous night together.”

 

    Charlie smiles at him, like he can’t quite believe this is real, and Hugh just wants to hold him, to keep him in bed all day, safe from the world.

 

    Instead, they eat breakfast, and Charlie ducks into the bathroom to change into clothes for the day, and they kiss each other goodbye at the door.

 

    Maybe it’s early to think about having Charlie in his home as more than a regular guest, but Hugh could get used to that sort of sweetness…

 

    He looks up the nutritional benefits of cheese during his lunch break, and copies the information in the clearest terms he can, using a font he thinks will be clear and easy, with how little he really knows about Charlie’s difficulty with reading.

 

    He prints it out at home, and he feels even gladder than he’d thought he might feel when Charlie shows up.

 

    “I’ve got some information about cheese for you.” He greets, giving Charlie a kiss on the cheek at the door, and watching him stash his backpack in the corner with his kicked-off shoes, watches him hang up his jacket instead of just throwing it with the rest. “And I’ve been contemplating supper. Do you want to cook with me, or just keep me company?”

 

    “I’ll cook with you. Or… I’ll… read? While you cook? Like, I’ll read to you?” He asks, snagging the page from Hugh, relaxing when he sees the way it’s broken up, the way there aren’t too many hard-looking words.

 

    “That sounds lovely. I’m sure you can do both if you like, I haven’t really figured out what I’d make, but now I know to make it for two. What do you think about fish? Pasta?”

 

    “That sounds lovely.” Charlie whispers to himself, nodding. He follows Hugh into the kitchen, hopping up onto one of the two stools pulled up to the counter. “Fish… like, fish and pasta together? That sounds good.”

 

    “Then that’s what we’ll make. I’ll start getting us set up, when you’re ready to do some cooking come and wash up and we’ll find you a job.”

 

    “And… do I get rewarded for doing a good job?” He leans forward a little, wiggling in his seat, and Hugh has to come over to kiss his cheek again before getting to work, he simply can’t look at Charlie without melting at the sight of him, overcome with enthusiasm like this.

 

    “Good boys always get rewarded in this apartment.” He promises. “If you do a good job and you save some room at dinner, there’s a special dessert waiting for you. Would you like that? I could feed it to you.”

 

    Charlie nods, licking his lips. “Yeah you could feed it to me.”

 

    “I’ll feed it to you, then. I know you’re going to be a good boy-- I know you’re going to make me happy tonight. Like you made me happy last night.”

 

    “I didn’t-- I didn’t do anything last night.” Charlie shakes his head, uncertain.

 

    “You came over. You spent time with me. It makes me very happy to have you wanting to be good, but you don’t have to do anything special to make me happy, love… you just have to be with me. You make me happy even when we’re not doing these things.”

 

    “Oh. Cool.” He relaxes into a smile, leaning against the counter and picking up the sheet.

 

    “Indeed. Now, could you read for me while I start everything for us? And call me over if you need help with a word, or skip it-- whatever works for you.”

 

    Charlie bites at his lip again, but he nods and turns his attention to the sheet just the same. Hugh can see him psyching himself up before he begins.

 

    “Cheese is… deli… cuz-- delicious! And nut… rich us. Nut-ritious-- nutritious! There are more than three hundred kinds of cheese!” He beams up at Hugh, and Hugh turns to grin back at him.

 

    “Very good.”

 

    “That is a lot, I thought I had tried a lot of cheeses but that is so many… Like I couldn’t even… and I’ve had cheese from a cottage, like, it’s not like I never had any fancy cheeses.”

   

    “I’ll have to find some kinds you haven’t tried, then. I’ll look for some less common cheeses next time I do the grocery shop.” He nods.

 

    “Cheese… con-tains… nuts. Nut-r-- nutrition.”

 

    “Nutrients?”

 

    “Nutrients. Right. Like calculus and protein.” Charlie pauses. “That doesn’t sound right.”

 

    “Why don’t you take another look at it?”

 

    “Calc… ium. Calcium! That’s a word, that’s from milk! Calcium and protein. Protein’s another thing that’s important when you work out, I know about that one, too. And zinc. What’s zinc?”

 

    “Zinc is a mineral that our bodies can use. It can help keep us healthy.”

 

    “That’s cool.” Charlie kicks his legs a little, studying the sheet. “The gang sometimes says ‘Charlie, you eat too much cheese’, ‘Charlie, eating that much cheese can’t be good for you’, ‘Charlie, you smell like cheese, stop eating all the cheese all the time’, but I should tell them cheese actually keeps your body healthy. I’m glad you found all this stuff, you’re really smart.”

 

    “Well, I mean… I know how to research things when I don’t know the answer already, but I suppose that’s something smart people need to do sometimes.” Hugh blushes. “I’m glad it’s useful.”

 

    “Yeah, dude, super useful. Mac is gonna want to know this… Cheese has v...vitamins. Like Vitamin A and Vitamin B twelve. Your body uses calcium to build bones. Your body uses protein to build mus… muscles. Vitamin A helps keep your organs in good working order.” He reads slowly. “Vitamin B twelve keeps your blood healthy. Dude, sick, I didn’t know there was a vitamin for making your blood work good. And… Some studios show that there are companies of cheese that… No.”

 

    Hugh waits for Charlie to bring the paper over to him, leaning in to kiss his cheek first.

 

    “Some studies show that there are components of cheese that reduce…”

 

    “Reduce the risk of… cavities?”

 

    “Very good, Charlie.” He smiles warmly.

 

    “Well that explains how I still have any teeth left, huh?”

 

    Hugh does his best not to frown over that, but Charlie just kind of smiles back when he fails, and rests his head briefly on Hugh’s shoulder.

 

    “This was some good science. Now how can I help with dinner?”

 

    “Wash up for me and I’d like to get you working on the sauce, if you don’t mind. Have you ever made tomato sauce before?”

 

    “Uh, I’ve opened a jar.”

 

    “Well, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble making it from scratch with me, but the kind from a jar is usually good. But tonight should be special, with my darling good boy…”

 

    “Yeah, okay.” Charlie smiles, the kind of smile that brightens Hugh’s whole day. He follows instructions well, and dinner comes together easily with the two of them working side by side. Dinner disappears easily, too, with Charlie praising him for it until he’s reminded he’d done half the work.

 

    Hugh watches as Charlie looks down a moment, marveling over this, before beaming up at him.

 

    “We did good, yeah.” He nods.

 

    “We make a wonderful team.” Hugh smiles. “Room for dessert?”

 

    Charlie nods eagerly, giving his lips a little anticipatory lick, and Hugh clears the dishes to be dealt with later-- no point washing up after dinner and dessert separately. He kisses Charlie’s forehead as he gathers his plate up, nuzzling briefly into his hair with a smile.

   

    “Go and wait for me on the sofa, I’ll come feed you in the living room.” He directs, his voice low, and Charlie gives an excited wriggle in his seat before hurrying to obey.

 

    Hugh fixes an ice cream sundae, taking exacting care with each step before bringing it in to Charlie, enjoying the look that comes over his face.

 

    “I thought we would share again, like at the ice cream parlor… though I made it quite a bit bigger. There’s more in the kitchen if you don’t get enough, but I think this should take care of us both.” He settles into the seat beside Charlie, giving him the chance to admire the sundae before digging him out a bite.

 

    This may not offer quite the same sensual pleasures and temptations as hand-feeding him popcorn, but it’s less messy… And Charlie still enjoys it, Hugh still gets to hear his little pleased hums, gets to see him suck the spoon clean and lick his lips-- and do his best to lick whipped cream off his nose, only to make Hugh lean in and kiss it away.

 

    Those big eyes and that little smile, there’s not much Hugh wouldn’t do for him… he’s wrapped around that man’s little finger, and at times like this, he thinks Charlie knows it. It makes up for all those moments that his heart aches over Charlie’s surprise at having his own worth affirmed, to see him like this, self-assured and pleased with his appeal, confident enough in his boundaries to enjoy the fact that Hugh is not remotely immune to his charms, that Hugh wants a great many things he refuses on principle to take.

 

    “You always pay attention when I do something good.” Charlie scoots in closer between bites, eyeing the cherry on top of the sundae, breaking into the widest smile when Hugh plucks it from the bed of whipped cream to feed it to him.

 

    “Of course I do… what sort of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t?”

 

    “Dunno. Guess I’m used to nobody paying attention.” He swipes a fingerful of whipped cream, shyly offering it to Hugh rather than popping it into his own mouth. He squirms a little at having his finger sucked and licked clean, but his expression betrays no hint of discomfort, just that wondering amusement that this is A Thing. “That’s what makes it different with you. But it’s not like-- Don’t get weird on me again about how it’s like before, with your science experiment. It’s not like that at all, okay? Okay?”

 

    “Okay.” Hugh nods, and Charlie relaxes.

 

    “Okay. ‘Cause I don’t like it when you get weird about that like you did a bad thing to me! I like doing stuff and having you pay attention to me for it, but it’s not like with the science experiment because you mean it for reals. You’re not just telling me stuff that’s not real, like… everything we do is real. Even when it’s kind of a game, it’s… You’re not just like ‘oh Charlie, you’re smart from the plac-- placebo-- thing’! You’re not jerking me around, because I’m really doing good now. And reading and helping out and trying new things and playing around with… like, the popcorn kink.”

 

    “Well--” Hugh cuts himself off. ‘Popcorn kink’ may not be wholly accurate, but it’s hardly the most important part. “That’s very well put. Things are different now. And you do deserve my attention and you work to earn treats like this, but-- of course I like to pay attention to you even when we’re not engaging in any kinks. I like to pay attention to you because you’ve come to mean a good deal to me. It bothers me to think that you’re so used to not being paid attention to, if I’m honest. I think you deserve to have your hard work praised by others, too. I think your friends and family should recognize you more often.”

 

    “I’m pretty okay with my family not paying too much attention to me. Like less attention, even.” His head thuds softly against Hugh’s shoulder. “I’ve kind of figured out the difference between good attention and bad attention on my own, thanks.”

 

    “Well… all right.” Hugh nods. And perhaps he should ask, but perhaps that can wait… He doesn’t want to hide behind waiting just because he’d rather not know, because he’d rather not think of the whole long history of all the times that Charlie has been hurt. But he won’t spoil their evening now, when they have a slowly melting ice cream sundae to share. The last thing he wants is to let his good boy worry now.


End file.
